This summer I was taking my 2 kiddos on a trip from Jordan to USA and it didn’t even cross my mind that I would need permission from my husband to leave the country.
Let me first lay out some background info:
- my kids are dual citizens of Jordan & USA
- my husband has Jordanian nationality
- my last name is different than my kids’ names
- I am not a Jordanian citizen
Considering the things above, I need to get legal permission from my husband to take our children out of the country without him. Questions cross my mind – if my kids don’t hold Jordanian passports, would I still need permission from their father? If my last name was the same as my children’s names would I still be stopped automatically? If my husband was a foreign nationality would I need permission from him to travel with them alone? These questions bring out the feminist in me because, in Jordan, my husband would never be stopped by immigration and told that he needs a letter from me (the mother) to travel outside of Jordan with the kids. This is my point, the patriarchy in Jordanian law needs to be changed. Many countries, like Italy for example, stop solo parents/family members traveling with minors to ask for authorization, from both parents.
Jordanian law states: “Children under 18 years old traveling out of Jordan need the official consent of their father unless they are accompanied by both legal parents“. This applies to the following cases:
- Children with a non-Jordanian mother, whether they have separate passports or are listed on their mother’s passport
- Children with a Jordanian mother who are listed on her passport
- Children traveling with a relative other than their mother
Since I won’t be changing the sexist law anytime soon, I want to share how to get travel authorization for minor children to leave Jordan. There are 2 ways to go about this:
- Visit your local police station – the father of the children must go to the police station with the mother and children’s passports and flight tickets. They will give you an attested “letter of consent” document to authorize travel.
- Via the Sanad app – you can apply on the app and get an attested e-document of the authorization. Much easier process in our experience.
My Amman Life 
It is possible to travel with minors without having the father’s permission and without being stopped or questioned. I am not sure how, because many factors could have been at play, but I was able to. Can you share in your blog what your experience was and if they actually asked you for a permission note or if that would be in their system?
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Hi Ashley. The article is written from my personal experience. I wrote down the list of reasons why I think I was stopped in the first paragraph. I had to get a permission note from my husband. I did it through the Sanad app, but you can also do it at the local police station.
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can you explain how you used the Sanad app for this please??? I’m in your situation as well!
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Hi Bree. You need to download the Sanad app and follow the process for travel permission. If your husband is Jordanian then he needs to fill it out from his account.
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I am guessing it’s only if you leave on the Jordanian passport. I had no issues taking my daughter in and out on her American passport even with different last names.
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Yes. I am referring to my case of me being American and traveling out of Jordan with my kids who entered Jordan on their Jordanian passports.
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I had the same situation in January this year. My husband is Jordanian, I’m Polish. Kids have both citizenships. All of us have the same lasy name. When I came with kids to Jordan we used their Jordanian passports. I wanted to leave on the Polish ones but since they were no visa in them they asked me if kids have any other passports. Once I showed them Jordanian passports they asked for the consent. Luckily my husband was waiting in thw airport till we do the passport control so they brought him in to do the paper.
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I got lucky the first time that they accepted just to speak with my husband on the phone. Now we do the permission on the Sanad app.
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