Tag Archives: gender equality

SDG16.9 – The vital link between legal identity and statelessness?

SDGs legal identity statelessness

Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 makes birth registration the focus for improving legal identity for all.  Since the adoption of the SDGs, the link between legal identity and the fight to end statelessness has been strengthened.  That is why SDG16.9 has come to be about more than birth registration.  Rather, it is about the importance of government identification systems and good …

The time is now: what progress on repealing discriminatory nationality laws?

discriminatory nationality laws

In this blog I come back to the issue of discriminatory nationality laws as they affect women and their children, causing an increased risk of statelessness. I wrote previously about the impact of such laws in Nepal and Iran, although they are not the only states who still have discriminatory nationality laws.  There has been some progress recently in states …

Forever delayed – statelessness “under consideration” in Lebanon

Lebanon

In this blog I consider the causes of statelessness in Lebanon.  The situation in Lebanon is complex, for historic reasons, due to discriminatory nationality laws, administrative challenges and its large long-term refugee population, primarily from Syria and Palestine.  There is enough material to fill a whole book, never mind just the one post. In this blog I focus on statelessness …

You can’t go home again: the plight of Syria’s stateless Kurds

Plight Stateless Kurds

“You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious …

Of woman born – how gender discriminatory nationality laws contribute to statelessness in Nepal

Of woman born Nepal

An estimated 5.4 million individuals in Nepal (24 per cent of the population aged 16 years and above of Nepal’s 30 million population) do not have citizenship documentation. I wrote about all the basic rights that are unavailable to a stateless person here.  Statelessness in a population arises for a number of reasons such as minority group discrimination, migration issues, …

The Abidjan Declaration – West Africa’s commitment to eliminate statelessness

Abidjan Declaration

What is the Abidjan Declaration on the eradication of statelessness? The Abidjan Declaration was adopted in February 2015 by the Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to support UNHCR’s global campaign to end statelessness by 2024.  It was endorsed by the Summit of ECOWAS Heads of State and Governments in Accra, Ghana on 19 May …