Executive summary & recommendations This report is structured in three parts. The Executive Summary and Recommendations provides an overview of the report as a whole offering recommendations which have been drafted with the objective of supporting efforts to reform and improve law, policy and practice. Part one provides the reader with an overview of the issues and research process, as well as the context and historical background of the situation covered. It also provides an overview of profiles most at risk of discrimination and exclusion and looks at some of the fundamental challenges related to citizenship and access to documentation. Part Two provides an overview of the legal framework – the law and policy context as well as relevant international obligations of Myanmar. Part Three, which is the core of the report, presents the field research findings, providing a deeper overview of the manner in which discrimination, and the intersection of different types of discrimination, impacts those who possess certain characteristics. In doing so, it takes a closer look at the specific challenges to accessing documentation and citizenship, which were identified through the research. This part also looks at the impact and mutually reinforcing relationship between lack of documentation and/or citizenship, and access to other human rights. This report analyses the administrative challenges of accessing citizenship documents in Myanmar, in particular for minority groups. In Myanmar, a significant proportion of the population lack access to the documents that would facilitate access to the services and rights they should be entitled to. As such, they suffer from a deficit of rights and are at risk of statelessness. The research findings indicate that people who fit specific demographic profiles were more likely to face challenges in accessing documentation. They point to significant issues of discrimination, arbitrariness and corruption within the administrative system. This report assesses Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, and the manner in which it has been implemented, against international standards. It finds it to be discriminatory and unnecessarily complex in the multi-tiered and hierarchical citizenship scheme it offers. As it stands, the law privileges recognised ethnic groups, disadvantages unrecognised groups and racially discriminates in the acquisition of nationality; it falls short of Myanmar’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child; it considers being ‘of unsound mind’ an adequate basis for the denial of citizenship; and, while not directly discriminating on the grounds of gender, it has a gender discriminatory4