nationality law also provides for gender equality in the transfer of nationality from parent to child. The new Algerian law is the best example of efforts to bring legislation into compliance with international standards because it also grants Algerian women the right to transmit nationality to their spouse on the same terms as Algerian men. This provides a further avenue for preventing and reducing statelessness. More limited steps, but nonetheless reflecting efforts to avoid statelessness have been taken in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Both countries recently introduced measures to allow children to acquire nationality from their citizen mothers in certain limited circumstances, going some way to improving safeguards against statelessness. Statelessness and migration Problems relating to nationality and statelessness have surfaced in the context of numerous migratory movements involving MENA countries. There are the Bedouin whose nomadic way of life impeded their access to citizenship during the period of state formation, leaving some stateless. Children born within both nomadic communities also find themselves at heightened risk of statelessness, because birth registration rates are generally understood to be much lower within such communities. Birth registration is essential for ensuring every child’s right to acquire a nationality because it documents place of birth and parental affiliation, thereby proving a child’s entitlement to the nationality of a state by either jus soli or jus sanguinis, under the applicable law. Thus, lower rates of birth registration lead to an increased risk of statelessness. Just as birth registration coverage tends to be poorer within nomadic communities, so too are registration rates for children born within migrant or displaced populations – of which there are many in the region – thereby underlining the need to take further steps to ensure that such families can access birth registration through both the host state and through embassies. In Morocco for instance, UNHCR is working with local partner Organisation Marocaine des Droits Humains to help children born within refugee communities acquire birth certificates in order to reduce their exposure to statelessness. At the same time, the continued adherence of many MENA countries to the principle of perpetual allegiance, whereby nationality can be transmitted jus sanguinis even between successive generations born outside the territory of the state, is helping to avoid statelessness among children born to migrant parents from MENA countries. Displacement or migration may also accompany or follow statelessness, as illustrated by the movement of Bidoon from Kuwait to Iraq, the emigration of stateless Kurds from Syria, the arrival of stateless Rohingya in Saudi Arabia and the arrival of stateless refugees in various MENA states. As a consequence, countries become directly confronted with the problem of statelessness, even if they have safeguards in place to avoid the creation of statelessness within their own jurisdiction. Measures to ensure the protection of stateless persons must therefore be considered. Furthermore, where states have hosted displaced persons who are stateless, nationality considerations are critical in finding an appropriate solution to their situation. For instance, in order to facilitate the repatriation of those denationalised and exiled from Mauritania as well as stateless (Feili) Kurds from Iraq, measures have been put in place 24