Gender-based violence (GBV) is strongly rooted in inequality and discrimination against women in social, political, civil, and economic life. While changes to social norms and practices to uphold women’s equality are needed, legal equality is essential to addressing GBV.
In one out of four countries globally, discriminatory nationality laws require reform to uphold women’s equality and effectively combat GBV.

Gender discrimination in nationality laws results in wide-ranging human rights violations, is a primary root cause of statelessness, and contributes to multiple forms of gender-based violence, as described in this brief guide.

Gender discrimination in nationality laws is a root cause of childhood statelessness. Gender-discriminatory policies and practices also contribute to statelessness among children.

Children rendered stateless by gender-discriminatory laws and practices are often unable to enjoy a broad range of human rights, including family unity, freedom of movement, and access to education, healthcare, and a range of social services.

In this report:

• What is gender discrimination?

• Countries with gender-discriminatory nationality laws regarding the conferral of nationality on children

• Why does gender discrimination contribute to statelessness among children?

• What is the impact of gender discrimination in nationality laws and statelessness on children?

• Children currently and formerly affected by statelessness because of gender discrimination

• International and regional instruments promoting gender equality in nationality laws

• Regional declarations and protocols

• The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights

• More information about gender discrimination & childhood statelessness

Click here for the English version of the report

In this submission, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, and members Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion and Focus Development Association provide information to the Thirty-fourth Session of the UPR Working Group of the Human Rights Council to inform the Universal Periodic Review of Madagascar. The submission highlights concerns about gender discrimination in the law with regard to nationality in Madagascar and includes key recommendations for action by the government of Madagascar to better address this area of concern.

عقدت قيادات المجتمع المدني من كلاً من  أفريقيا ومنطقة البحر الكاريبي والشرق الأوسط وجنوب وجنوب شرق آسيا الاجتماع الدولي الأول  للحملة العالمية من أجل حقوق متساوية في منح الجنسية في اسطنبول- تركيا، وذلك من 24 حتى 25 أبريل 2019. و تعد هذه الحملة كائتلاف ملتزم بتحقيق واقع تكون فيه قوانين الجنسية لكل دولة متساوية في التعامل مع مواطنيها بغض النظر عن نوعهم الاجتماعي. ولذلك ندعو بإلحاح  للعمل بشكل عاجل نحو القضاء على التمييز الجندري في قوانين الجنسية. تأتي هذه الدعوة من قلب اعترافنا بالحق الغير قابل للمصادرة لكل فرد بمعاملة متساوية أمام القانون، وكذلك بالمدى الذي تؤثر فيه حقوق الجنسية على التمتع بحقوق مدنية و سياسية واقتصادية واجتماعية واسعة النطاق.

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From April 24-25, 2019 civil society leaders from Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia convened in Istanbul, Turkey for the first global meeting of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, a coalition dedicated to achieving a world where every country’s nationality law treats citizens as equals regardless of their gender. In recognition of the inalienable right of every person to equality and equal treatment before the law, and the extent to which nationality rights impact the enjoyment of a wide-range of civil, political, economic and social rights, we strongly call for urgent action to end gender discrimination in nationality laws. 

As the world marks Human Rights Day 2022 and the final day of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) join the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights in calling for urgent, much needed reforms to uphold gender-equal nationality rights without delay in MENA and elsewhere.

Citizens’ equal right to pass their nationality to their children is a fundamental human right, one that is essential to advancing gender equality, children’s rights and wellbeing, and sustainable development, and to preventing statelessness. While women were historically denied the right to confer nationality, over the past several decades most nationality laws have been reformed to enable women and men to confer nationality on an equal basis. Yet today 24 countries globally maintain nationality laws that limit or prevent women from conferring nationality on their children on an equal basis as men, with twelve of these twenty-four countries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. Almost fifty countries prevent women from conferring nationality on their spouse on an equal basis as men.

Click to read the full statement in Arabic. The English version may be viewed here.

This submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Migrants was made to inform the report on Human Rights Violations at International Borders: Trends, Prevention and Accountability – Recognizing the Particular Vulnerability of Women & Children.

Gender-discriminatory nationality laws cause wide-ranging human rights violations that are often heightened for migrants, with particular hardships and rights violations experienced when affected persons seek to cross international borders. Women’s unequal ability to confer nationality on children and spouses causes family separation, inhibits freedom of movement, and is linked with multiple forms of gender-based violence, including trafficking of women across borders, sexual exploitation, child marriage, obstacles to women extracting themselves from domestic violence, and other unsafe situations. These harms and rights violations caused by gender discrimination in nationality laws have been tragically exacerbated by the pandemic and its associated travel bans.

This submission is made on behalf of Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action, Family Frontiers, Forum for Women, Law and Development, The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, and “My Nationality Is a Rights for Me and My Family” Campaign.

Du 24 au 25 Avril 2019, les responsables de la société civile d’Afrique, des Caraïbes, du Moyen-Orient, d’Asie du Sud et d’Asie du Sud-Est se sont réunis à Istanbul en Turquie pour la première réunion mondiale de la Campagne Mondiale pour l’Egalité des Droits en matière de Nationalité. C’est une coalition qui est engagée à créer un monde dans lequel les lois sur la nationalité de chaque pays traitent les citoyens sur un pied d’égalité sans distinction de leur sexe. Considérant le droit inaliénable de chaque personne à l’égalité et à l’égalité de traitement devant la loi, et le degré auquel les lois sur la nationalité influent sur l’exercice d’un éventail de droits civils, politiques, économiques et sociaux, nous demandons instamment que des mesures soient prises d’urgence pour mettre fin à la discrimination fondée sur le sexe dans les lois sur la nationalité.

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From April 24-25, 2019 civil society leaders from Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia convened in Istanbul, Turkey for the first global meeting of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, a coalition dedicated to achieving a world where every country’s nationality law treats citizens as equals regardless of their gender. In recognition of the inalienable right of every person to equality and equal treatment before the law, and the extent to which nationality rights impact the enjoyment of a wide-range of civil, political, economic and social rights, we strongly call for urgent action to end gender discrimination in nationality laws.

The Statelessness Network Asia Pacific, The Brunei Project, the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion made this joint submission to the Human Rights Council at the 33rd Session of the Universal Periodic Review (April-May 2019) on the challenges pertaining to citizenship, gender discrimination, statelessness and the enjoyment of fundamental human rights in Brunei Darussalam.

We urge reviewing States to make the following recommendations to Brunei Darussalam to reform the Brunei Nationality Act 1961 to remove provisions that discriminate on the basis of gender and race, and in particular, to allow women to enjoy equal rights as men in conferring citizenship to their children and spouses.

The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion provided the CEDAW Committee with this submission on the links between gender discrimination in nationality laws, statelessness and human trafficking to inform the Committee’s drafting of a new General Recommendation on trafficking in women and girls in the context of global migration. 

The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, Bahrain Women’s Union, and Equality Now submittted supplemental information for the consideration of the Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding Bahrain’s compliance towards every child’s right to acquire a nationality. The submission focused on the denial of the child’s right to acquire a nationality in violation of Articles 2, 7 and 8 of the CRC, as a result of gender discrimination in the nationality law of Bahrain.

Roughly 50 countries globally have nationality laws that discriminate on the basis of gender. Twenty-five countries retain nationality laws that deny women the right to pass their nationality to their children on an equal basis with men. While most African countries uphold citizens’ equal right to pass citizenship to their children, roughly one-third of the countries that deny women the right to pass their nationality to their children on an equal basis with men are in Africa. Approximately 40 percent of African countries deny women the right to pass their nationality to their foreign spouse on an equal basis with men. Several countries in the region have nationality laws that also discriminate against women in their ability to change or retain their nationality. Today, ending gender discrimination in nationality laws is a critical area of reform needed to achieve gender equality and combat statelessness. One of just a few root causes of statelessness, gender discrimination in nationality laws undermines women’s equal status in society and the family and implicitly ascribes women a second-class citizenship status.

This publication provides a brief overview of reforms to uphold gender equality in the nationality laws of Algeria, Botswana, Kenya, and Senegal—all countries where women and men have the equal ability to confer nationality on children and spouses. It also outlines partial reforms enacted in Madagascar and Sierra Leone, where citizens now have the equal right to confer nationality on children but where further reforms are needed to uphold citizens’ equal right to confer nationality on spouses. This publication does not provide detailed information on the important movements for gender-equal nationality rights in these countries—movements that advanced women’s equal citizenship and the welfare and security of countless affected families. The second half of the publication summarizes the significantbenefits to citizens, their families, and society when gender-equal nationality rights are upheld.

The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion have prepared this submission regarding gender discrimination in the nationality laws of the United Arab Emirates in order to inform the country’s review during the 29^th Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), 15-26 January 2018.

The United Arab Emirates is one of the twenty-five remaining countries that deny women the right to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis with men. It is also one of roughly fifty countries to deny women the ability to confer nationality on spouses on an equal basis with men.

Gender discrimination in nationality laws result in myriad human rights violations, treat women as second-class citizens, and are a leading cause of statelessness. As global momentum builds for the eradication of gender discrimination in nationality laws, it is critical that United Nations Member States leverage the UPR process to sustain calls for reform.

In order to understand the impact of discriminatory

nationality laws on women, their children and their
spouses, the Women’s Refugee Commission and the
Statelessness Programme at Tilburg University, undertook
a year-long project that researched two countries
in the Middle East that still have discriminatory nationality
laws—Jordan and Kuwait—and two countries in
North Africa—Egypt and Morocco—that have changed
their nationality laws to allow women as well as men to
pass their nationality onto their children. The research
included a review of nationality legislation of the four
countries and field assessments in each country to interview
affected women, men and their children. The
report brings out their experiences and their voices.

لكي نتمكن من فهم تأثير قوانين الجنسية التمييزية على
النساء وأطفالهن وأزواجهن، نفذت اللجنة النسائية للاجئين
وبرنامج انعدام الجنسية في جامعة تيلبورغ، مشرو ً عا لمدة عام
أجرى أبحاثًا في بلدين في الشرق الأوسط لا يزال لديهما قوانين
جنسية تمييزية—الأردن والكويت—وبلدين في شمال إفريقيا—
مصر والمغرب—قاما بتغيير قوانين الجنسية الخاصة بهما
للسماح للنساء والرجال بنقل جنسيتهم إلى أطفالهم.
واشتمل البحث على مراجعة لتشريعات الجنسية في البلدان
الأربعة وتقييمات ميدانية في كل بلد لإجراء مقابلات مع النساء
المتضررات والرجال وأبنائهم. ويبرز التقرير تجاربهم وأصواتهم.