After browsing through the Citizenship Act 1951 of Pakistan the inescapable conclusion one draws is that 'man is the fulcrum' of and 'woman an exclusion' in the law governing citizenship in Pakistan.
Man is allowed to marry a non-citizen woman (though with the permission of the government in the case of government employees under the Government Servants (Marriage with Foreign Nationals) Rules 1962) and the wife acquires the status of the citizen after complying with legal provisions and procedures without delay. Fair enough. And their issues will be regarded 'citizens by descent'. Section 5 of the Act reads: 'Subject to provisions of section 3 a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of Pakistan by descent if his father is a citizen of Pakistan at the time of his birth'. A woman citizen of Pakistan is also allowed to marry a non-citizen man but the Act bars her husband to get the citizenship of his spouse, a right given to man and denied to woman.
The contemplation of the Act on the legal status of non-citizen spouse of Pakistani woman has a number of implications and reflects 'multi-layered discrimination' against women in the Act. The Act restricts the right of woman to free choice of marriage, confining its exercise to the borders of Pakistan only.
In case she steps out of the limits set by the law, she has to choose between two options: to leave her country of origin migrating to a country where her spouse resides or subject her spouse to the subordinate status of non-citizen in her country, no matter how long he stays in Pakistan. The Act does not care for it. The Act dissuades foreigners to marry Pakistani women in and from outside Pakistan, impairing women's right to marriage. This is not the end, the effect trickles down to the children of female parent: they are not citizens of Pakistan either by birth or descent since the determining factor in their citizenship is the father's nationality.
The Act is not only discriminatory prejudicing the rights of women but is also in conflict with the Constitution of 1973.
The Act goes against the grain of Universal Declaration of Human Rights the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women 1957 which has been signed by Pakistan in April 1958 (not ratified so far) provides in article 1 that 'Neither the celebration nor the dissolution of marriage between one of its nationals and alien, nor the change of nationality by the husband during marriage, shall automatically affect the nationality of the wife'.
Pakistan has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 1979 and all its provisions are binding on the domestic courts in Pakistan. The only reservation Pakistan has made to Women's Convention is that any provision conflicting with her Constitution shall not be binding but the reservation is of less significance for article 25 of the Constitution stands for the equality of men and women before the law and prevents discrimination on the basis of sex, the thrust of Women's Convention.
Article 25 of the Constitution absolves Pakistan of its international obligations undertaken under article 2 (a) of Women's Convention that States Parties shall undertake to embody the principle of equality of men and women in their national constitutions. However, Pakistan defaults on the core issues of ending 'discrimination against women in all its forms' and 'to modify or abolish existing laws ... which constitute discrimination against women' contained in the same article.
The Act is in contravention of article 9 of the Women's Convention.
Women are not treated equally in the Act because denying citizenship to alien husband of Pakistani woman amounts to 'forcing upon her the nationality of the husband'. And also the children of woman married to non-citizen are not treated at par with that of man for the words used are in the Act are 'father' and 'grandfather' instead of 'parent' and 'grandparent'. The children of woman married to non-citizens are outside the ambit of the Act.
The Act needs major overhauling to bring it in line with the Constitution and human rights law. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land making subservient all other laws to itself and any law that clashes with it shall stand null and void. The Act as it stands now clashes with article 25 of the Constitution and the conflicting sections of the Act should be amended.
This will be doing the first phase of obligation under the Constitution and Women's Convention: providing equal treatment to men and women in the letters of law. The second and most important is the implementation of the equality on paper to real situations of women in the country. The end of the first is the beginning of the second resulting in bettering the lot of the suppressed and the so far ignored segment of society. Pakistan has yet to begin in a number of areas, citizenship law is just one example.
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