May 17, 2019
The Majlis passed legislation May 12 to grant citizenship to children born to Iranian mothers with foreign fathers.
The legislation must still be approved by the Council of Guardians, which determines whether legislation meets the standards of the Constitution and of Sharia law.
Until now, citizenship has been passed to children only through fathers. An Iranian woman living in the United States, for example, who married a non-Iranian man could not register her children as Iranian citizens under Iranian law.
The new citizenship law was passed in the 290-seat Majlis by a vote of 188-to-20 with three abstentions.
The legislation was billed by its sponsors as a major breakthrough in women’s rights by giving women equal status with men in passing on citizenship.
It isn’t known how many offspring of Iranian mothers stand to benefit from the new law. The primary benefit, however, is expected to go to the children of Iranian women living in Iran who have married Afghan men. Those children are treated as foreigners and do not enjoy equal rights with others in Iran
The impetus for the bill, however, was Maryam Mirza-khani, the Tehran-born mathematician who won the prestigious Fields Metal for math, but died soon thereafter of cancer at the age of 40. She held US citizenship and was married to a Czech, so her nine-year-old daughter did not qualify for Iranian citizenship.
That prompted calls for a change in the law. The Majlis passed the new citizenship law on Mirzakhani’s birthday.