The section 10(2) of Pakistan Citizen Act 1951 has been challenged in the Peshawar High Court. Under the section 10(2) the non-Pakistani husband of a Pakistani woman cannot claim Pakistani nationality.
The petitioner Samina Rohi has moved the PHC and requested through her lawyer that her husband is an Afghan national who works in Kuwait. She stated that under the Pakistan Citizen Act 1951, if a foreign woman marries a Pakistani man, she is granted citizenship but any Pakistani woman who marries a foreigner can’t avail this facility for her husband.
The petitioner claimed that this section of the Citizenship Act was against the constitution because it is against the basic rights. She claimed that the law should be gender neutral as a rule but it was not the case as far as this act was concerned.
Her lawyer Saifullah Muhib Advocate informed the court that Afghan refugees were also living in Pakistan but any woman can’t claim nationality for her Afghani husband.
He said that due to Covid-19 he was denied the Pakistani visa too to visit his family because he was a foreigner. He requested the court to declare the biased section of the act void.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 29th, 2021.
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