A spokesman for Iran’s Public Health Office announced that 10 percent of children covered by public health care have no birth certificate.
ILNA quoted Habibollah Masoudi Farid saying on Saturday March 26 that government commissions are intent on pursuing the issue of providing Iranian citizenship to the children of Iranian mothers and fathers of foreign citizenship.
According to current Iranian law, citizenship does not pass through Iranian mothers, so that mothers who have children from non-Iranian fathers cannot get Iranian birth certificates for them.
A recent proposal to change the law and allow for the passing of citizenship from mothers to children was voted down.
Masoudi Farid stressed that despite the recent failure of the proposal in Parliament, his office pursue the matter and try to get it approved in the next Parliament.
Official statistics indicate that 32,000 Iranian women who have married Afghan men are not able to acquire birth certificates and Iranian citizenship for their children.
