Having the right to pass on your nationality to your children should be a citizen’s right.
Every citizen, plain and simple.
It has absolutely nothing to do with gender – and, for those who bring religion into the equation, it has nothing to do with religion, either.
As a Bahraini woman, it is astonishing to me that if I chose to marry a non-Bahraini, my children would suffer as a result.
The current law is sexist and reductive, but having an MP come out and say that it should stay in place to “protect women” is downright inflammatory.
I was born to a Bahraini mother and an Iraqi father.
For the vast majority of my childhood I was considered non-Bahraini, despite being born to a Bahraini mother, born in Bahrain and raised in Bahrain.
This meant that for years, my mother had to consistently deal with problems when it came to travelling with us.
Our Iraqi passports were a struggle to obtain and, once we had them, we were unable to travel to many countries that had strict restrictions in place for Iraqis.
My parents also divorced when I was six years old. One of the issues that terrified my mother more than any other was the fact that she could not have fought for us if my father left the country, as we would no longer have the right to remain.
Because we were not nationals, she could not have petitioned the court for us, which put her in a perpetual state of anxiety.
Furthermore, once we turned 18 we would have needed a sponsor in order to simply remain in our home country.
My family is lucky in the fact that my father made Bahrain his home since I was born, and has never left.
We are lucky that we were awarded Bahraini citizenship when I turned 14.
But many other families have not been as lucky, and there is not a single woman in Bahrain who should have to rely on luck when it comes to her children.
Saying that you are protecting women is benevolent sexism – you are either not talking to women or understanding their concerns, or are being deliberately blind to them.
Furthermore, why should a Bahraini man be allowed to pass on his nationality to his children if a woman cannot do the same?
Bear in mind that same man can marry up to four women, and there is nothing to stop him marrying four non-Bahraini women and having multiple children.
Am I honestly meant to accept that a man with four wives can provide all of those children with Bahraini nationalities, but it is the woman with one husband who will shake up the country’s demographics?
It is utterly absurd.