Women and Citizenship Legislation in Lebanon

Abstract: Lebanese women cannot confer their citizenship to their children incase they marry a non-Lebanese man, nor can the man become a naturalized citizen through his Lebanese spouse. The purpose of this study is to describe the reasons to the policy of dependent citizenship in the Lebanese case, as well as its objectives. Lebanese women’s dependent citizenship in conjunction with the 15 different confessional Personal Status Codes, create a female citizen who needs to depend on male relatives to access some rights, which becomes even more problematic if the husband is foreign. Children to non-Lebanese fathers have reduced access to schooling, work and healthcare.