such, the Committee on the Rights of the Child raised various concerns with the state in its 2012 Concluding Observations on Myanmar.53 III. Discrimination on Grounds of Disability: Under the Law, being of ‘unsound mind’ is considered to be a basis for the denial of citizenship by naturalisation. However, Article 18 of the CRPD sets out that persons with disabilities have the right to a nationality “on an equal basis with others”. IV. Gender: Article 9 of CEDAW prohibits gender discrimination in nationality laws. While there is no direct gender discrimination in the Law, the requirement that both parents must have citizenship to confer citizenship upon a child is likely to have a discriminatory impact. These provisions disadvantage the children of single mothers, other women in vulnerable situations and undocumented women.54 39. Significantly, the law creates and perpetuates statelessness, shutting out from access to citizenship, entire ethnic groups. The 1982 Citizenship law has been critiqued by several UN experts for being discriminatory on grounds of ethnicity.55 Arbitrary and Discriminatory Practices Related to Access to Civil Documentation 40. The lack of civil documentation is a widescale and systemic problem in South East Myanmar as well as country wide. In 2014, up to 11,000,207 persons (27.3 percent) over the age of 10 did not have a valid identification document.56 This does not mean that the citizenship of all these people is under question, but such large-scale lack of documentation combined with the discriminatory legal framework inevitably impacts the citizenship rights of those belonging to minorities, and/or those who are likely to face discrimination on multiple grounds such as disability, socio-economic disadvantage, displacement and even gender. Myanmar is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society with a long history of large-scale migration (within the country and to and from the country) and a more recent history of forced migration and (in some cases) return. This reality is neither reflected in or catered to by the inadequate existing law and policy framework. For example, the forced migration of individuals due to the conflict in South East Myanmar has been largely concentrated into the South Western and Western border regions of Thailand. The existing law and policy framework in Myanmar do not recognise the birth certificates of refugees born in Thailand undermining the recognition of citizenship and access to rights and benefits of refugees and their children born abroad, on return to Myanmar.57 41. The Rohingya are the largest stateless group in the country. However, other groups, especially those who have affiliations with populations in the Indian sub-continent and China are also excluded from citizenship because they are not recognised as residing in Myanmar prior to the colonial period. Some of these groups may not be generally referred to in Myanmar by self-ascribed 53 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, ‘Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 44 of the Convention, Concluding observations: Myanmar’ (14 March 2012), CRC/C/MMR/CO/3-4, available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/co/CRC_C_MMR_CO_3-4.pdf , para. 41. 54 For a more comprehensive analysis of gender discrimination in Myanmar’s citizenship law, see Norwegian Refugee Council, The Seagull, Institute of Statelessness and Inclusion, Snap, ‘A Gender Analysis of the Right to Nationality in Myanmar’ (2018), available at: https://www.nrc.no/resources/reports/a-gender-analysis-of-the-right-to-a-nationality-in-myanmar/. 55 See for example, the Statement by Ms. Yanghee Lee, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar at the 34th session of the Human Rights Council (13 March 2017), available at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21355&LangID=E 56 2014 Myanmar Housing and Population Census, The Union Report, p. 207. 57 Norwegian Refugee Council, The Seagull, Institute of Statelessness and Inclusion, Snap, ‘A Gender Analysis of the Right to Nationality in Myanmar’ (2018), available at: https://www.nrc.no/resources/reports/a-gender-analysis-of-the-right-to-a-nationality-in-myanmar/ 9