A/HRC/60/42 services, freedom of movement and legal protections – sometimes escalating to the level of persecution, as seen in the case of the Rohingya in Myanmar. 7. Despite those challenges, significant progress had been made. The I Belong campaign to end statelessness, a decade-long UNHCR initiative, resulted in over 560,000 stateless individuals acquiring nationality. Noteworthy successes also included Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, which had resolved all known statelessness cases within their borders. Globally, more than 20 countries had adopted new laws to protect stateless persons, 13 had passed laws to prevent future statelessness and 3 had eliminated gender discrimination in their nationality laws. A significant regional milestone was the adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Relating to the Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa. 8. Building on the I Belong campaign, the Global Alliance to End Statelessness – a multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at translating political will into concrete action – had been launched in 2024. In closing, the Assistant High Commissioner warned of emerging threats, including the rise of ethnonationalism and the use of deprivation of nationality under the guise of counter-terrorism. Those trends risked further entrenching exclusion. III. Overview of discrimination in nationality matters and the disproportionate impact on minorities and women 9. The first panel discussion, moderated by Simon Walker, Chief of the Rule of Law and Democracy Section at OHCHR, provided an overview of discrimination in nationality matters and its disproportionate impact on minorities and women. 10. Juan Sebastián Chamorro, a visiting fellow at the University of Notre Dame in the United States of America, former Secretary of Planning and Vice Minister of Finance in Nicaragua and former Executive Director of the Foundation for Economic and Social Development and of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, also in Nicaragua, began by expressing concern over the growing use of statelessness as a tool of political repression, emphasizing its severe consequences for individuals, families and society. Nationality was more than a legal identity – it was a fundamental link to one’s culture, history and land. Describing his own experience, he noted that arbitrary deprivation of nationality was a targeted political weapon used to eliminate dissent. He had been deprived of his nationality on 9 February 2023, the day he and 221 other political prisoners had been released from detention and forcibly exiled. He highlighted the paradox of being declared free while being rendered stateless, describing it as a deliberate attempt by the Nicaraguan authorities to inflict psychological damage on and erase the identity of those who had been exiled. 11. Mr. Chamorro noted that deprivation of his nationality and exile went beyond legal exclusion – it was aimed at severing emotional and family ties and causing maximum personal suffering. His participation in the national dialogue process and his subsequent presidential candidacy had made him a direct target. He had been arrested in 2021, held incommunicado and sentenced to 13 years in prison for alleged treason. The aim of the authorities was to silence opposition through fear and exile. He expressed deep concern about the widespread confiscation of assets, including homes, businesses, savings and social security entitlements, from persons deprived of their nationality and exiled. Those actions deprived people not only of their financial security, but also of their dignity. Statelessness caused long-term, compounding hardships – logistical, economic, emotional and social. He described statelessness as a form of “living torture”, citing the loss of rights such as access to identification, healthcare, education and legal protection. He highlighted the particular impact on children and families, citing cases of marriages that had been annulled and families that had been torn apart. He expressed concern about the psychological toll of forced family separation and the continued targeting of relatives by the authorities as a means of extending repression beyond national borders. He also stressed the urgency of addressing the legal limbo faced by older stateless persons, who might die without ever regaining their rights. 12. Despite the gravity of the situation, Mr. Chamorro acknowledged the support he had received from several countries, including Spain, which had granted him citizenship in early 2024. Those gestures were not only acts of diplomatic goodwill, but also essential forms of GE.25-10379 3