to accessing education, healthcare, employment, property rights, inheritance, freedom of movement and family unity. Gender discriminatory nationality laws also inhibit women’s ability to freely choose a spouse and are linked with gender-based violence, including human trafficking and child marriage, and obstacles to women leaving abusive relationships.19 23. The co-submitting organisations welcome recent efforts to amend the Nationality Code to remove gender-discriminatory provisions and uphold gender equality, including a government established working group tasked with drafting proposed reforms in 2018. Additionally, the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights was honoured to include the Minister of Justice of Togo, the Honorable Kokouvi Agbetome, in its September 2020 High Level Event on Achieving Gender Equality in Nationality Laws during the 75th UN General Assembly. We welcomed Minister Agbetome’s affirmation at the event that the Togolese government is resolutely engaged in working to achieve gender equality in its nationality law. However, we remain concerned that gender equality has yet to be enshrined in Togo’s Nationality Code. We encourage the government to enact reforms to uphold gender equality in the nationality law without delay. Impact of gender discrimination in Togo’s nationality law and statelessness 24. Gender discrimination in nationality law is a leading cause of statelessness globally. The Togolese Nationality Code includes gender discriminatory provisions that contribute to statelessness, yet there is no statistical information on the scope or extent of statelessness in Togo. The lack of statistical information in itself points to a deeper gap by the state to prioritise and address the issue of the right to nationality and the rights of stateless persons in the country. This is particularly so, when considering the various legal provisions which undermine the right to nationality, thereby increasing the likelihood of statelessness being generated and perpetuated. 25. More specifically, gender discrimination in the nationality law results in a range of human rights violations impacting children. These include the denial of the right to a nationality and resultant statelessness over generations (Art. 7 CRC); lack of access to public education (Art. 28 CRC), healthcare (Art. 24 CRC) and other services. This restriction can also impede family life in violation of article 9 of the CRC. For example, when foreign men are denied access to their Togolese spouses’ nationality, they may be forced to live away from their children due to challenges in acquiring residency permits and obstacles to employment, or they may try to take the children away from the mother and back to their own country.20 26. Consequently, in addition to resulting in violations of CRC Article 7, this restriction violates the Guiding Principles of the CRC as set out in Article 2 (non-discrimination), Article 3 (best interest), Article 6 (child’s development) and Article 12 (respecting the views of the child). 19 For further information, see: https://equalnationalityrights.org/images/zdocs/Impact-of-GenderDiscrimination-in-Nationality-Laws-on-Gender-Based-Violence.pdf 20 Equality Now, Campaign to End Sex Discrimination in Nationality and Citizenship Laws, 2013 (updated 2018), available at: https://www.equalitynow.org/the_state_we_re_in_ending_sexism_in_nationality_laws 6