Gender bias in nationality law scrapped

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, praised Liberia for removing gender discrimination from its nationality law, granting women the same right as men to pass their nationality to their children. A Voice of America report says Liberian President George Weah amended the country’s Aliens and Nationality Law on 5 August, removing the primary cause of statelessness among children. UNCHR says the amended law gives women the same rights as men to confer their nationality on their children. Heretofore, children were unable to access the rights of citizenship if the father was absent or unknown. Under the new Act, children will be able to benefit from their mother’s citizenship even if there is no man in the picture, UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said. That, she said, will spare many children from becoming stateless and deprived of multiple rights. ‘It really can exclude people from the rights and assistance and services that other citizens may have by limiting their access to education, health care, documentation, and also exposing them to risks of lifelong discrimination and exclusion, as well as violence, abuse, and trafficking.’ In 2014, the UNHCR estimated there were at least 10m stateless people in the world when it began its #IBelong Campaign to end statelessness by 2024. ‘We know that statelessness is a global phenomenon. We know in West Africa there are apparently at least 1.6m stateless people or people of undetermined nationality.’