December 25 2020
As a result of the revised child citizenship law, the first identity card has recently been issued for a child born to an Iranian mother and a foreign father.
Masumeh Ebtekar, vice president for women’s and family affairs, announced the milestone November 14 on her Twitter account. She said the total number of such children ranged anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000. She said the majority live in border areas and have Iraqi or Afghan fathers.
Ebtekar told Middle East Eye that two years ago she went to Sistan va Baluchestan to open a school for girls who didn’t have birth certificates and were forced to leave regular state schools. “There I met 12-year-old and 14-year-old girls who couldn’t read or write” because regular state school would not accept them.
Schools are supposed to accept them, but many principals refuse to allow them in the classroom.
Mahsa, an Iranian woman married 20 years ago to an Afghan man, told Middle East Eye, “I work in a tailoring shop and my husband is at home taking care of my children since he can’t find a permanent job because of his nationality.”
She said, “The worst thing is that my three children don’t have ID cards, which has caused them much trouble. Did I commit a sin by marrying a good Afghan man?”
The problem of such children only made it onto the front burner three years ago following the death of the mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani, in California at the age of 40. The public became aware then that her six-year-old daughter had no Iranian citizenship because Mirzakhani had married a Czech. The child has US and Czech citizenship.
Hassan, 23, told Middle East Eye how the relatives of both his Afghan father and Iranian mother consider him to be neither Afghan nor Iranian. “No one has ever understood me during all these years,” he said. “But now I’m happy because, once my ID card is issued, at least my relatives will change their views.”
Heliya, 17, said she only became personally aware of the issue when she was 15 and went to register with a wushu club so she could train in that martial art. “The first thing they told me was to bring my ID card and some money for registration. I did not like to say I do not have an Iranian ID card, so I never went there again. Now I can go there and apply.”
Mansur Haji, director of citizens and foreign immigrants of Tehran province, said 18,300 people have already applied for citizenship under the new law in his province.
He didn’t say what nationalities the fathers hold, though most foreign men married to Iranian women in Iran are believed to be Afghans who came to Iran in recent decades looking for jobs and to escape the disorder in Afghanistan. The new law also applies to Iranian women living in the United States and Canada and married to non-Iranian men.
In October of last year, the Guardian Council ratified a bill amending the law on citizenship that previously barred citizenship to children with foreign fathers even if they were born in Iran and had Iranian mothers.
According to the revised law, children of Iranian women and non-Iranian men who were born before or after the law went into effect this year can now hold Iranian citizenship, although the security agencies must first certify that the children pose no security problem.
Worldwide, statelessness affects millions of people, leaving them without the basic rights and official recognition that most people take for granted. Some 3.9 million stateless people appear in the reporting of 78 countries, but the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) believes the true total to be significantly higher.
According to the UN, 25 countries still bar mothers from passing citizenship to their children.