this father or the grandfather was born in Bahrain. (C) Born in Bahrain or abroad, after the effective date of this Act, and his mother, at the time of birth was a Bahraini national provided that father was unknown, without nationality or fatherhood was not substantiated. The law is therefore based on paternal jus sanguinis, which means that nationality is only transferred through a Bahraini male. Women cannot transmit their nationality to their children or husbands. According to this law, Bahraini mothers can only confer their nationality to their children when the father is unknown or not legally related to the children. 15. Bahrain is thus, one of 27 countries around the world that continues to discriminate against women in their ability to confer their nationality to their children on an equal basis with men. Given that gender discrimination in nationality laws has no basis under international human rights law, that it is easily remedied through law reform and that it continues to have significant detrimental human rights impacts including statelessness, the international community has come together to address this phenomenon under the banner of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights.20 Furthermore, UNHCR’s Global Campaign to end statelessness prioritises the removal of gender discrimination from nationality laws through its Action Point 3.7.21 16. The discriminatory nature of Bahraini nationality law also puts children at heightened risk of statelessness. When a child cannot obtain the nationality of the father, they are at heightened risk of becoming stateless.22 With a substantial number of stateless individuals in the country, this is a particular problem as if the father is stateless, the child will then become stateless regardless of the status of the mother. In order to transfer nationality to their children, unless the father is stateless, women have to actively demonstrate that the father is unknown or that fatherhood was not substantiated, which can be very difficult to do, especially in a culture where having children outside of wedlock is often not accepted and may lead to stigmatisation, further exacerbating the risk that their children will remain stateless. The poor implementation of this criteria also raised questions, as many Bahraini women married to Bidoon men have not been able to transfer their nationality to their children. 17. Despite Bahrain’s commitment during its 2012 UPR to amend its law, and although there have been some discussions on amending this law, there has been no law reform to date. It must be noted however, that there have been some steps taken to resolve this problem. In 2013 for example, the General Secretary of the High Council of Women in Bahrain stated that more than 3.000 children of Bahraini women married to non-Bahraini nationals were granted Bahraini nationality by Royal Decree. However, these types of royal decrees are piecemeal and arbitrary 20 The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (the Global Campaign) is a coalition of international and national organisations that promotes gender equality in nationality laws, so that women and men can confer, acquire, change and retain their nationality on an equal basis. The Campaign has a Steering Committee comprising Equality Now, Equal Rights Trust, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, UNHCR and Women’s Refugee Commission. The Campaign was launched in June 2014 at a Side Event at the 26th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and has conducted numerous international advocacy activities to encourage states that still maintain gender discriminatory nationality laws to reform their laws and bring them into compliance with international human rights standards.3 21 See UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Global Action Plan to End Statelessness, 4 November 2014, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/545b47d64.html 22 For more information see UNHCR, Background Note on Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness 2016, 8 March 2016, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/56de83ca4.html