The Jordan Times published a revealing first-person account of the sheer sexism of Jordanian law with regards to Jordanian women married to non-Jordanian men. (Reverse the situation: Jordanian men married to non-Jordanian women, and you shall have a smooth sailing). Read:

A Jordanian family of men?

Nermeen Murad

Almost two years ago I wrote my first column at The Jordan Times and expressed my incredulity at my family being denied membership of the Jordanian family.

My husband and children have not only been denied citizenship, they have also been subjected to a series of what I would call xenophobic legislation and directives that certainly ensure they could never claim that they belong here.

Two years on, I have become resigned to the fact that Jordan, with its current social and political mindset, will resist any attempt from my side to add my small family’s imported name to the list of Jordanian family names. This I do with regret for my children who will never comprehend why their mother’s country rejected them outright and without compromise.

But this doesn’t mean that I will give up the fight, at least for reduced bureaucracy in dealing with the affairs of the spouse and children of a Jordanian woman, regardless of their nationality.

Hence, here I go again.

Two weeks ago, the Jordanian Ministry of Education saw fit to allow the foreign children of a Jordanian woman to enrol in public schools. I don’t want to go on about how shocking it is that they had been kept out of these schools for so long. I will instead concentrate on welcoming the positive and calling for even more movement in that direction.

Let me please describe the situation. The husband of a Jordanian woman is treated exactly like any foreign labourer and has no special categorisation that even slightly improves his standing with the authorities in the country.

In plain Arabic speak, he has no wasta! He and every other menial worker who enters Jordan are given the same treatment.

So, therefore, when he buys a car, he needs security clearance. When he buys a house, he needs security clearance. He renews his driver’s licence every single year and every year he pays the fees again. He renews his visa every year and, of course, has to go through the same procedure as the domestic helper, registering his address at the local police station and then taking all his documentation to the different departments associated with the Ministry of Interior. My children carry an iqama, exactly like the contracted workers, and my husband has the added pleasure of also carrying a work permit.

The husband of a Jordanian woman cannot simply decide to live in Jordan without work because it is the work that allows him to have a residency and not his marriage.

I look forward to making arrangements for retirement in any other country in the world that will be happy to allow my husband and I to retire in peace without an annual hassle; my country has so far not made allowances for that possibility.

In fact, an anomaly appeared the other day when we began procedures to employ a domestic helper under my husband’s name, only to find out that he has to put JD2,000 deposit as a guarantee against the import of a house helper.

This is the same treatment allocated to passing foreigners in the country and does not begin to allow for the fact that he resides here in Jordan because he is the lifetime partner of a Jordanian citizen, albeit a women.

I asked the other day at a brokerage firm whether I could create small investment portfolios for my minor children only to find out that the law had a relapse against me in this regard.

Apparently I, their mother, cannot be the guardian of my minor children, because that is the father’s prerogative and therefore any funds invested on their behalf by me is under the control of their father.

If Jordan cannot bring itself to welcome our husbands and children as honoured citizens of the Jordanian family, then let it at least welcome them as honoured guests.

Directives such as the one that allowed the children of a Jordanian woman into schools are to be commended and encouraged. But they must be followed by other such steps that recognise the special status of this sector of society and seeks to make its members welcome in their adopted home.

One-year residency should be replaced with five-year residencies, followed by permanent residency for the relatives of a female Jordanian citizen. Sale or purchase of personal property, i.e., houses and cars, should be routine for the spouses and children of a Jordanian woman.

Irregularities in the law which favour male members of the Jordanian family over female siblings should be reduced and in time, removed. Then, we can honestly claim to be home to the one Jordanian family.

Nermeen34@aol.com

Source

This is truly a slap on the face of justice.