Following the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syrian women are seizing what they see as a historic opportunity to challenge one of the most entrenched forms of legal discrimination in the country: their inability to pass on their Syrian nationality to their children.
Under Syria’s Decree No. 276 of 1969, citizenship is conferred only through the father. This law has remained in effect for over five decades and has had devastating consequences for Syrian women married to non-Syrians—particularly those whose children are effectively left stateless. These children are often denied access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, legal residency, property ownership, and travel documents.
For women like Nour Baytar, a Syrian mother married to a Turkish national, the law represents a painful contradiction. “I am their mother, and yet I have no legal right to grant them my nationality,” she said. “It’s not just a flawed law—it’s a denial of my motherhood and my humanity.” Her children hold only Turkish citizenship. Had they also been granted Syrian nationality, she says, their identity would feel complete—connected to both their homeland and their roots. Without it, they remain suspended between identities, strangers in their mother’s country.
A Long-Standing Demand for Reform
This issue is not new. For decades, Syrian women and rights advocates have called for reforms to the nationality law. The matter reached parliament several times over the past 20 years, and in 2011, the government of then-Prime Minister Adel Safar formed a committee to consider changes—particularly in regard to children born to Syrian mothers and foreign fathers. However, political resistance—fueled by fears of demographic change, especially concerning Palestinian refugees, and later justified by counterterrorism rhetoric—meant no concrete steps were taken.
Now, with a transitional government in place and a new Interim Constitutional Declaration adopted in March 2025, activists believe the political climate may finally be shifting. A growing number of women’s rights groups are pushing the issue to the fore, stressing both the urgent need for reform and the constitutional and international obligations that compel the state to act.
One of the most prominent initiatives is the “My Nationality Is Their Right” campaign, launched in 2017 by the civil society collective Workshop. The campaign emerged in response to the sharp rise in stateless children born to Syrian mothers during the war, particularly in areas outside former regime control, where legal and administrative chaos made registration nearly impossible.
Campaign founder Rasha al-Tabbashi explains that the problem predates the war but has become more acute in recent years. “From the outset, we knew this wasn’t a temporary crisis—it’s a deep-rooted legal issue affecting mothers and children across the country. What we’ve seen since the revolution began is simply a worsening of an already discriminatory system.”
Demands for Equality and Accountability
The campaign calls for a comprehensive amendment to Decree 276, aiming to guarantee full legal equality between men and women in conferring nationality to their children—regardless of the parent’s gender or the spouse’s nationality. It also demands retroactive solutions for those already affected, including the formal recognition of citizenship for previously excluded children, and access to essential rights such as education, healthcare, employment, and mobility.
Until the law is amended, the campaign urges the transitional government to enact interim policies ensuring that the children of Syrian mothers are treated as citizens in daily life, including in school enrollment, hospital access, and official documentation.
Yet, despite growing awareness, the movement faces ongoing obstacles. Among them are the lack of reliable data on how many children are affected, which hinders the presentation of concrete evidence to policymakers. Social and cultural challenges also persist, including patriarchal attitudes that dismiss or diminish the role of mothers in shaping national identity.
“We are still fighting the stereotype that the father is the only legal anchor for the family,” Tabbashi says. “But citizenship should not be a matter of gender—it’s a matter of equality and justice.”
A Constitutional and International Obligation
Legal experts argue that the current law violates Syria’s own constitutional principles as well as its international commitments. Article 10 of the Interim Constitutional Declaration guarantees equality before the law regardless of gender or lineage, while Article 12 states that international human rights treaties ratified by Syria are legally binding. These include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which affirms a woman’s equal right to pass on her nationality, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees every child the right to a nationality.
International law specialist Moatasem al-Kilani explains that Decree 276 is incompatible with these frameworks. “The law is based on the principle of bloodline through the father, which disregards the mother entirely unless in exceptional cases like the father’s absence or unverifiable paternity—and even then, only if the child is born inside Syria,” he notes. “This violates multiple articles of the interim constitution and is a clear breach of Syria’s international obligations.”
Who Has the Power to Change the Law?
According to Kilani, four actors have the legal authority to push for change:
- The transitional parliament, which can amend or repeal Decree 276 with a two-thirds vote;
- The constitutional committee, which can embed gender-equal nationality rights into Syria’s future permanent constitution;
- The transitional government, which can draft and propose legislation aligned with constitutional principles;
- And civil society, especially women-led advocacy groups, which play a vital role in mobilizing public opinion and legal pressure.
Kilani believes the current political moment offers a rare opportunity. With the transition underway and a new legal framework being built, both domestic and international actors—including the United Nations and Syria’s international partners—can and should push for reform.
A Message to Syria’s Transitional Government
Rasha al-Tabbashi concludes with a clear message to Syria’s new leadership: “Ending discrimination in the nationality law is not just a legal necessity—it’s a test of whether this new chapter for Syria will truly deliver on its promises of justice and equality. A just Syria must recognize women as equal citizens—not only in name, but in law, and in the lives of their children.”
The nationality law, she adds, is a litmus test for the sincerity of Syria’s transition: no genuine reform is possible if half the population remains legally subordinate. “This is about citizenship, yes—but also about dignity, identity, and the future of generations to come.”
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
