“Gendered Citizenship in Qatar”

This research Group will be looking closely at the gendered citizenship law (No. 38/2005) that gives only Qatar men the right to pass their nationality to their children and excludes Qatari women. Passing one’s nationality to his/her children is considered a human right and denying this right constitutes a discrimination against women in most- but not all- Arab countries. Human rights agencies and women’s rights organizations across the MENA region have been advocating for this right with their governments basing their argument on the fact that most of these countries have ratified the UN treaty- CEDAW- the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. Qatar ratified the convention in 2009, with reservation that covered nine of its articles, on the basis of their contradiction with Shari’a- the Islamic law. Article 9, paragraph 2 concerning equal rights between men and women in passing nationality to their children was a part of Qatar’s reservation. Research conducted on women’s rights in Qatar is sparce and is usually a result of “foreign” educational systems and is approached through a euro-centric lenses. However, few studies were conducted by national institutions, such as a study by the Doha International Family Institute- DIFI’s in 2018 titled “Marrying Out: Exploring Dimensions of Cross-Country Marriages among Qataris.”

Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)