Across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, nationality laws continue to entrench gender discrimination, perpetuating women’s marginalisation and exposing thousands of children to the risk of statelessness. It is well-known that under the dominant patrilineal model – often rooted in customary interpretations of kinship and supported by elements of family law grounded in Sharia-influenced framework – citizenship is typically passed down from the father rather than the mother. Thus, women who marry non-nationals cannot automatically pass their nationality to their children – a restriction rooted in the patriarchal interpretation of the Sharia law. As an example, in Qatar nationality can only be transmitted through the father, whereas in Bahrain and in Oman mothers may confer nationality only if their father is unknown or stateless. Such provisions effectively undermine women’s citizenship, denying them equality both in law and in daily life.
The consequences of these discriminatory laws are far broader than one can imagine. As a matter of fact, children born from GCC mothers and non-nationals fathers are almost always treated as foreigners in their own country. This often means that they face higher university fees, limited access to healthcare and exclusion from public-sector employment and social-security benefits. According to Amnesty International, this form of discrimination deepens women’s economic dependence and limits their ability to escape abusive relationships. Young women, in particular, are disproportionately affected and, more often than not, the families that are forced to pay foreign tuition rates, prioritize educating the sons over the daughters, extending gender inequality across generations.
Moreover, gender-biased nationality laws are a leading cause of statelessness in the Gulf region. In fact, research by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion illustrates that when women cannot transmit nationality, the children born from female citizens and stateless or foreign fathers may be left without citizenship altogether. This lack of nationality restricts the access to basic fundamental rights such as education, healthcare and legal protection. A significant consequence of these laws is that stateless women face a double burden – excluded from both citizenship and the ability to pass it on – while their children grow up marginalized and undocumented.
All six GCC countries are parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which clearly lays down in Article 9 the obligation for states to grant women equal rights for acquiring and transmitting nationality, the same ones that essentially men are able to enjoy without prejudice. However, extensive reservations, applied by GCC states, have significantly weakened the article’s effectiveness and intent. The CEDAW Committee and the UN Human Rights Committee have repeatedly urged governments such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to amend discriminatory nationality laws and ensure the right to nationality not only to every woman, but also to all children – as guaranteed under Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, progress remains slow and largely dependent on royal decrees rather than legal reforms.
For the GCC countries to fulfil their human rights obligations, they must reform nationality laws in order to guarantee women equal citizenship rights and remove all barriers to civil registration. They should absolutely withdraw all reservations to CEDAW, integrate equality into national legislation and ensure that Sharia-based interpretations of family law are consistent with international human rights standards. Ultimately, eliminating gender discrimination in nationality laws is essential to put an end to statelessness and achieving true equality for women and children in the Gulf. Only through comprehensive legal reform can the region ensure that no woman or child remains stateless in the country they call home.