Libya put a new nationality law on the books this summer. It grants women the right to pass their own nationality to their children if they are married to foreign spouses.

Human rights watchers say this is a significant move for women’s rights in the North African country – where women’s roles are often misunderstood to outsiders.

This law directly affects Amel Jerary, a Libyan woman who recently divorced her Moroccan husband.

Jerary lives on a family farm estate in Tripoli. Her grandfather bought the land in the 1950s. Jerary’s father bought land on the same footprint in the 1980s.

ambi

Inside her parents’ house, Jerary’s mother is prepping to cook.

ambi: kitchen

There are about 10 families who live on the land. It’s like a little village.

Recently, Jerary, a single mother, added to the family lot. Jerary bought land from her grandfather and had a house built. She’s still in the decorating phase.

ambi: house tour

We find a shady tree in the backyard and talk about her life.

Jerary says her personal life has her reflecting about women’s issues in Libya. She’s the one who initiated the divorce from her Moroccan husband. They have three children who will have Libyan citizenship.

JERARY: I found that our laws are really supportive of women. In other Arabic countries a woman – in some of them –cannot file for divorce. In Libya, you can file for divorce and maintain all of your legal rights. Like I have custody of my children, my husband is supposed to provide us with a residence, a house, he’s supposed to pay alimony.

Jerary is a professional. Her government job is teaching English and German at a local university. The 40-year-old has carved an entrepreneurial niche by doing cross-cultural training for Westerners who work in Libya.

And she can go anywhere and dress anyway she pleases. For example, unlike the majority of Libyan women, Jerary does not cover her head.

JERARY: No one is going to go behind you with a stick and tell you that you should not be wearing this, you should be wearing that. You get equally paid as a man if not higher.

But Jerary concedes that there’s a wide gap between what a woman is allowed to do legally and what society allows her to do.

JERARY: Socializing in public is where you have to be very careful. How you dress, how you present yourself in public, you know how you walk publicly. How you talk to men. How you socialize even with women in public – what you’re not supposed to do. You’re not supposed to laugh in a very loud way. You’re not very comfortable in public. You don’t walk slowly when you’re walking in public. You walk quickly.

This behavior is intuitive in Libyan society. That social pressure goes back to family structure. During the 1980s and 1990s, Libya was cut off from the rest of the world via international pariah status and sanctions … and family became even more the foundation and entertainment. Family reputation trumps everything. While the law doesn’t restrict women, family expects them to engage in proper behavior.

None of this is so difficult that Jerary wishes it would change.

JERARY: We’re not very individualist in this society. It’s not me, it’s not about me. It’s not about my life, and it’s not about my career. It’s about my family usually. That’s how we’re raised.

ambi: introduces father

Her father is head of the national archives of Libya. I stumble over the few phrases I know in Arabic, and then tell him in English that’s all I know.

Jerary’s father attended the University of Wisconsin and Jerary was born in Madison.

The family returned to Libya when Jerary was five years old. She enrolled in a British-Libyan school to keep up with her English. By the mid-1980s, the Libyan crisis with America hit a crescendo. And the school closed after the U.S. bombed Libya.

JERARY: I was in my 10^th year and my parents thought it was not a very good idea to have go back into a Libyan public school. And my brother was in America at the time, my older brother. And they decided I should go join him and finish my education. It was very difficult for them to do at the time; it was a big risk they had taken. For them, my education was very, very important.

Jerary has lived and studied in America and Germany. Now, a love for her homeland has come back. She says used to criticize Libya as a place one could never live. Today, among her friends, she defends the country.

JERARY: It has become very important for me to be very settled in my identity. For a time there I was a bit confused, and I did not feel comfortable with my life – and I did not become content - until I became very at ease with my Libya identity. This is home. This is where I belong. This is where I feel comfortable.

And this is why she wants her children to be here with Libyan citizenship.

Just then a three-year-old with freshly washed hair slips out the front door and wanders over to her mother.

ambi of mother talking to daughter in Arabic.

Jerary asks how her nap was. Watching their interaction, I ask Jerary a question that many Americans broadly wonder about Arab, Muslim women.

MOORE: Do have any social pressure for not being covered?

JERARY: None whatsoever. And I know people don’t believe me when I say that. But absolutely none whatsoever. I even forget that I’m not covered.

MOORE: How will you deal with this subject when your daughter hits puberty?

JERARY: I’m worried about that; she’s three. I think that she will just by seeing my cousins and the people around her, she will be sort of in the position where she would want to cover up. I don’t know if I will encourage her or dis-encourage her. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Her school-age sons return from the mosque, eager to play outside. They are 11 and 7.

ambi: children asking to play in Arabic

Jerary doesn’t worry about her daughter’s future because of her gender.

JERARY: I’m more concerned about all three of them. I’m concerned about their education. I want them to be educated in a way, trying to envision a future, which is very global.

For them to be able to find their way … and to always know Libya is home.

ambi fades of children playing