The Global Multistakeholder Summit on Advancing Gender Equality in Nationality Laws featured keynote addresses from Kelly Clements, Deputy High Commissioner, UN Refugee Agency; Sofia Calltorp, Director, Geneva Office, and Chief of Humanitarian Action, UN Women; and IPU Secretary General, Martin Chungong. Attendees also benefited from presentations by activist leaders and impacted mothers, including leading Nepali activist Deepti Gurung, Nansen award winner for the Asia Pacific (2024), and Adlyn Teoh, one of the Malaysian mothers leading the campaign for women’s equal nationality rights, which achieved a historic constitutional amendment passed by parliament in 2024.

Speakers also included UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women member, Elgun Safarov, and Committee on the Rights of the Child member, Suzanne Aho, and other experts (see below) who provided insights on the benefits of gender equality in nationality laws, related international legal frameworks, and important links with the sustainable development goals. Breakout group exercises were an integral part of the summit, providing a platform for participants to collaborate and brainstorm ideas and strategies for reform. Parliamentarians, government officials, and civil society representatives worked in groups to identify key challenges and opportunities within their national contexts. These sessions focused on practical steps to advance gender-equal nationality rights, fostering collaboration, mutual learning, and the exchange of diverse perspectives and expertise. By the Summit’s close, participants identified key next steps at the national, regional, and international levels for 2025 and beyond, and affirmed the importance of such multistakeholder exchanges to realize progress. The Summit builds on momentum driven by several recent convenings and initiatives promoting an end to gender discrimination in nationality laws, including the Global Summit on Gender Equality in Nationality Laws (2023), the Human Rights Council Resolution on Nondiscrimination in Nationality Laws (2023 and preceding resolutions in 2012 and 2016), the Arab Declaration on Belonging and Legal Identity (adopted in 2024), the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Relating to the Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa (2024), and the Global Alliance to End Statelessness (launched in 2024). The Summit underscored the importance of collective effort by diverse stakeholders to mobilize action to achieve equal nationality rights for women and men, which benefits society as a whole. Despite significant progress, twenty-four countries[1] still retain nationality laws that deny women the right to pass their citizenship to their children on an equal basis with men. More than forty countries[2] prevent women from conferring nationality on their spouse on an equal basis with men. At their core, gender-discriminatory nationality laws undermine women’s status as equal citizens and their equality in the family, and are a root cause of statelessness and other wide-ranging human rights violations.