Amman, Nov 04: Jordanian women will have better rights regarding passing on citizenship to their children and other family matters under amendments designed to improve equality of the sexes. The changes were announced by Queen Rania to applause at yesterday's opening session of an Arab women's summit in Amman. The amendments had been passed recently by the cabinet, but not yet publicized.
The changes are seen as a significant step for women's rights in Jordan, a relatively liberal Arab state but still a male-dominated society where wives were legally required to defer to their husbands or daughters to their fathers in many family matters. Many women considered it humiliating, for example, that they could not legally obtain a passport or decide on an operation for a child without their husband's consent. For unmarried women, the father was legally responsible. Those requirements have now been dropped.
The Queen said the changes were intended "to give the Jordanian woman her rights and equality which are guaranteed to her by the Jordanian constitution."
Under the changes to civil, labour and social security laws, the children of Jordanian women married to foreigners will also receive more benefits. However, a Jordanian woman's foreign husband is still not entitled to Jordanian citizenship, as is the foreign-born life of a Jordanian man. The cabinet will be authorized to grant Jordanian citizenship to children of a Jordanian woman married to a non-Jordanian if it finds the request "appropriate," government spokesman Mohammad Affash Adwan told the official Petra news agency. Bureau Report