Women rights

Benita's Paper cover

“People like me, they have to bypass”

Research Paper
My nationality is my right has a long history in Lebanon. In a country, that does not treat its citizens equally; women cannot pass their nationality to their husbands and children if they have a binational marriage. To this day, this law is still on papers. In this paper, Benita argue that the performative citizenship of the children in these families is not only expressed through their political and social activism for a more inclusive citizenship law. Rather, by finding coping strategies to exercise basic human rights and by having an affective citizenship meaning they feel Lebanese and therefore state their right to be Lebanese on paper, they are performing Lebanese citizenship.

Perspectives #11 - 'Khadija, do not close the door!' Women in Peace, in War and In Between

When women in the Middle East make the headlines, it is usually as victims. Disturbing stories of the so called 'Islamic State' (ISIS) kidnapping and raping tens of thousands of women are sadly often the ones which stick in the Western memory. But there is more to women's political lives in the region than their victimisation and oppression. We decided to look to the future, present and past in this issue, in order to present an alternative narrative which challenges these representations of women.