Addressing Gender Discrimination in Nepal’s Nationality Law and Its Impact on Stateless Women and Girls
Date: November 2024
Submitted by:
- Citizenship Affected People’s Network (CAPN) Nepal
- Nationality for All (NFA)
- Statelessness and Dignified Citizenship Coalition – Asia Pacific (SDCC-AP)
- Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI)
- The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR)
As part of Nepal’s upcoming review before the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in February 2025, Nationality for All (NFA) is proud to introduce our Joint Submission on gender discrimination in Nepal’s nationality law and its impact on stateless women and girls.
Developed in partnership with Citizenship Affected People’s Network (CAPN) Nepal, SDCC-AP, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI), and The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR), this submission draws upon decades of community advocacy, lived experiences, and on-the-ground research to shed light on how Nepal’s current nationality framework continues to deny women equal rights to nationality and perpetuate statelessness across generations.
Understanding the Discrimination
Nepal’s Constitution and related nationality laws contain gender-discriminatory provisions that prevent women from equally conferring nationality to their children and foreign spouses, rights that Nepali men enjoy without restriction.
For instance, a Nepali woman married to a foreign man faces multiple procedural and evidentiary barriers when attempting to confer citizenship on her children, often requiring proof of the father’s identity or nationality. This discriminatory approach leaves many children without legal status or recognition, exposing them to lifelong exclusion.
The submission highlights how these laws:
- Contravene Nepal’s obligations under CEDAW, as well as other international human rights instruments guaranteeing equality before the law.
- Perpetuate statelessness among women and children, particularly among ethnic minority communities, such as the Madhesi, Tharu, and Dalit populations, who already face entrenched social and political marginalisation.
- Reinforce patriarchal norms and state control over women’s identity and autonomy, linking citizenship rights to marital and paternal lineage rather than individual equality.
The Human Impact
Through testimonies and documentation gathered by CAPN Nepal and coalition partners, the submission details how the denial of nationality rights affects every aspect of women’s and girls’ lives:
- Education and employment: Many are unable to enrol in schools, sit for national exams, or obtain jobs requiring official identification.
- Healthcare: Stateless women and girls are excluded from public health services, including reproductive healthcare and maternal support.
- Property and inheritance rights: Without citizenship certificates, women cannot own land or pass on property, deepening cycles of poverty and dependence.
- Gender-based violence: Stateless women face heightened vulnerability, as the absence of legal identity undermines their access to protection and justice.
These realities demonstrate how discriminatory nationality laws do not just deny legal status, they strip women of dignity, security, and belonging.
Ethnic and Regional Dimensions of Statelessness
The joint submission also examines how gender discrimination intersects with ethnic, caste, and regional inequalities.
For many Madhesi women and those in the Terai region, bureaucratic barriers are compounded by stereotypes questioning their “Nepali origin”, effectively making citizenship contingent on ethnicity. Similarly, Dalit and indigenous communities continue to face structural exclusion from documentation and legal recognition.
This intersectional analysis calls attention to the multiple layers of discrimination that sustain statelessness and calls on the CEDAW Committee to press Nepal for comprehensive reform that upholds equality for all women, regardless of ethnicity, marital status, or region.
Our Key Recommendations
The coalition urges the Government of Nepal to:
- Amend discriminatory constitutional and legislative provisions to ensure women have equal rights to confer nationality to their children and spouses.
- Recognise and remedy the statelessness of those affected, ensuring timely and accessible procedures for citizenship acquisition.
- Eliminate procedural barriers such as the requirement to prove the father’s nationality or identity for a child to obtain citizenship.
- Ensure inclusion of impacted communities, particularly women and ethnic minorities, in law reform processes.
- Fulfil Nepal’s international human rights commitments under CEDAW, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Toward Equality and Belonging
The Joint Submission to CEDAW is part of a broader effort to spotlight how gender inequality in nationality laws continues to perpetuate statelessness and exclusion in Nepal.
As Nepal undergoes its review before CEDAW in early 2025, this advocacy aims to ensure that women’s right to nationality is recognised as central to achieving gender equality and human rights for all.
📄 Read the full submission: Download PDF – Joint Submission to CEDAW on Gender Discrimination in Nepal’s Nationality Law
