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Need For Broadening Citizenship Provisions In Nepal
By KTM Metro Reporter
January 15, 2011: the New York based human rights organization called Human Rights Watch its statement made yesterday has said that if the current provision for the citizenship drafted for a new constitution is passed into a law, Nepal may have a crisis of statelessness on its hands.
The statement says “Draft articles on citizenship in Nepal's proposed new constitution risk making many Nepali children stateless. Some of the proposed citizenship provisions are sharply at odds with Nepal's obligations under international law as well as the explicit commitment in the draft constitution itself to prevent statelessness.”
The current draft modified by the High Level Task Force created to review the draft constitutional provisions in November 2010, specifies that a child would automatically be granted Nepali citizenship only if both parents prove they are Nepali citizens. Human Rights Watch urges the Constituent Assembly to amend the draft to allow a child born to either a Nepali mother or a Nepali father to be able to claim citizenship by descent, the statement says.
Human Rights Watch expressed concern over the 28 political parties endorsing the draft citizenship provisions of the High Level Task Force on January 3, 2011 in spite of the problems inherent in the provisions.
In addition, provisions in the proposal would only allow a child of a Nepali parent married to a foreign spouse to apply for citizenship by naturalization after the parents have lived in Nepal as a married couple for 15 years, assuming that the parent is approved for naturalization, which is a matter of state discretion.
Human Rights Watch research suggests that for Nepali women in particular, the securing legal proof of citizenship can be very difficult, especially when male family members refuse to assist them or are unavailable to do so. Denying women proof of citizenship is an expedient way of ensuring that they cannot assert their rights to marital property, inheritance, or land.
This contradictory citizenship provision must have been made to deprive the Indians marrying Nepalese women in Tarai of getting Nepalese citizenship.
