1. Morocco
2. Tunisia
3. Egypt
4. Lebanon
5. Syria
6. Jordan

Country Analysis - Jordan

Constitution

The Jordanian Constitution, formulated and adopted on November 28, 1947 (ratified January 1, 1952) contains in Article 6 that:

1. Jordanians shall be equal before the law. There shall be no discrimination between them with regards to their rights and duties on grounds of race, language or religion.
2. The Government shall ensure work and education within the limits of its possibilities, and it shall ensure a state of tranquility and equal opportunities to all Jordanians.

Nationality Law

In June 2004, the Minister of State, who is the government’s official spokesman, asserted that Jordan was studying three scenarios for the amendment of the nationality code allowing Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians to grant citizenship to their children, that is :

1. The right for Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians to grant citizenship to their children, except for Jordanian women married to Palestinians, in line with the amendment introduced by Egypt at the time.
2. Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians are entitled to grant citizenship to their children, except for the nationalities for which the Council of Ministers decides otherwise.
3. The children of Jordanian men are Jordanian, wherever they were born and the children of Jordanian women are Jordanian, wherever they were born.

Personal Story

X is a 30 years old Jordanian Woman, married to a Palestinian man in his sixties.   

Both me and my husband have had no formal schooling and cannot read or write.  We live in Al Zarqa' in Jordan and have ten daughters and two sons. The family is extremely poor.  I earn most of our 200 dinar (dollar) income as a cleaner. My husband used to work as a hawker but due to old age and health problems he’s all but stopped working. 

My marriage was arranged by my parents.  Although I’m of Palestinian origin my family members have been recognized as Jordanian citizens for at least three generations.  My husband is also Palestinian but he is not a Jordanian national.  After the 1967 war when Jordan offered Palestinians nationality rights he was unable to find the money required to pay for the paperwork. 

These situations have affected my children’s future:  “My children suffer.  They haven’t been able to finish school because every year the teachers are more and more reluctant to let them into the higher classes.  In the past I managed to pull strings but now I’m blocked so they have to finish their studies without the high-school diploma.  They have nothing to do now but sit at home. 

All through their childhood my sons and daughters have been made to feel second best by the school and by the neigbours. Now they’re very bitter and they blame me.  They’re lost. If only they’d had been allowed to finish school they would have been able to get good jobs and improve our situation. They would have helped push us out of the abyss.’