The Impact of Gender Discrimination on Statelessness mean that women are limited from registering children’s births in practice.54 Some women face compounded challenges in accessing birth registration on the basis of both gender and racial discrimination, as Petrozziello’s research in the Dominican Republic demonstrates, contributing to risks of statelessness for women and their children.55 Practical challenges in obtaining identity documentation are also a major barrier to proving nationality in the Southern African region.56 Genderdiscriminatory norms and practices contribute to barriers to women obtaining documentation, as women tend to face greater challenges than men in securing and retaining their own identity documents.57 Additionally, some women experience compounded discrimination in obtaining identity and citizenship documentation, such as due to their socio-economic status, and additional barriers due to lack of access to information, resources, and legal assistance.58 Thus, while women in these circumstances may have nationality rights in law, they can be denied their effective protection in practice. Violence against women (VAW) can also have consequences for women’s ability to access documentation and prove their identity and nationality. In cases of violence, abuse, or trafficking, women’s identity documentation may be seized or destroyed as a means of control.59 For example, women and girls comprise more than 70 per cent of all victims of trafficking,60 many of whom have their identity documents, such as passports, seized by traffickers or pimps.61 They are thus left without any way to prove their identity and nationality.62 As such, the UNHCR notes ‘… victims of trafficking, many of whom, especially women and children, are rendered effectively stateless due to an inability to establish such status’.62 Owing to the widespread epidemic of VAW around the world, women are also more likely than men to face situations of gender-based violence, abuse, and exploitation. In South Africa, there is evidence to suggest that women who lack identification documents to prove their nationality, and are consequently at risk of statelessness in practice, are at greater risk of VAW. In such cases, women who do not have identity documents are often reluctant to seek help from authorities, or face barriers in seeking assistance and services.64 The above discussion seeks to highlight some of the leading direct and indirect Petrozziello op cit note 12. Bronwen Manby Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging (2018). CEDAW GR 32 op cit note 6 para 57. 58 Trisha Sabhapandit & Padmini Baruah ‘Untrustworthy and unbelievable: Women and the quest for citizenship in Assam’ 2021 3(1) Statelessness & Citizenship Review at 236. 59 UN Human Rights Council (HRC) ‘Report on discrimination against women on nationality related matters, including the impact on children’ (2013) UN Doc. A/HRC/23/23 at para 24. 60 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) ‘Global report on trafficking in persons 2018’ (December 2018) at 25, 28, available at www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/2018/GLOTiP_2018_BOOK_web_small.pdf, accessed on 12 May 2022. 61 . UNHCR ‘Activities in the field of statelessness: Progress report’ (2002) EC/51/SC/CRP.13 at para 18. 62 Edwards op cit note 44 at 61 55 56 57 25