A/78/256 17. With regard to the conferral of citizenship to children born overseas, most countries guarantee equal rights to women and men; countries where that is not the case include Libya and Togo. 14 Most countries have codified the continued right of any citizen to their nationality, irrespective of marriage to a foreigner or upon its dissolution. Restoring a woman’s nationality is not a straightforward procedure in some countries. An Iraqi woman who chooses to renounce her nationality after acquiring the nationality of her non-Iraqi spouse is able to recover her nationality only under specific conditions, such as if her non-Iraqi spouse is granted Iraqi nationality or if she remarries an Iraqi national. In the event that her spouse dies, divorces her or terminates their marriage, she shall regain her Iraqi nationality effective from the date of application, provided that she was residing in Iraq at the time of application. The above-mentioned renunciation requirements are not imposed on men. 15 18. Several countries also do not permit women to transmit their nationality to a foreign spouse. For example, in the Philippines, section 15 of the Commonwealth Act No. 473, otherwise known as the Revised Naturalization Law, provides for the automatic conferral of derivative citizenship from husband to wife, which ultimately deprives women of their choice of nationality. Furthermore, section 12 of Republic Act No. 9139 provides that married women who apply for naturalization are unable to confer their citizenship on a foreign spouse. In Jordan, Lebanon and Oman, women lack the right to transmit their nationality to their spouse or their children. In Iraq, even where naturalization of a foreign spouse is possible, the requirements for Iraqi women are more complicated than for non-Iraqi women married to Iraqi men. 19. In most countries, women can automatically transmit their nationality to their biological children, irrespective of whether the children were born in or out of wedlock. In other countries, it is impossible to confer nationality on children born to certain nationals or outside of a legal marriage to nationals, which may result in a situation of statelessness. For example, according to article 17 of the Personal Status Law No. 188 of 1959 of Iraq, Iraqi men who are Muslim are permitted to marry only Muslim, Christian or Jewish women, thereby making marriages between Muslim men and Yazidi women illegal and their children considered to be born “out of wedlock”. Many Yazidi women have been forcibly married to Da’esh members in Iraq. Any children born out of wedlock in such cases are then registered as Muslim under a fake father’s name, as the law does not allow for women to g ive their names to their children. 20. Several countries prohibit minorities from becoming nationals of their countries, thereby rendering them stateless, in contravention of their international obligations. As was noted by the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, in 2018, persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities accounted for more than 75 per cent of the world’s known stateless populations (see A/73/205), with at least half of them women and girls. According to the 2014 population census of Myanmar, an estimated 11 million people lacked any legal identity documents, 54 per cent of them women. While a lack of legal identity documentation does not render someone stateless, it can be used as a means of excluding certain populations. In the light of the country’s Citizenship Law of 1982, statelessness particularly affects those persons not recognized as belonging to one of the 135 defined “indigenous races” or ethnic groups. The largest of these affected groups is the Rohingya Muslim __________________ 14 15 8/23 For full list, see UNHCR, “Background note on gender equality, nationality laws and statelessness 2023”. Iraq, Nationality Act, No. 26 (2006). 23-14780