of both gender discrimination and race discrimination, which causes statelessness among the Karana and other minority communities can also intersect, further exacerbating the scale and impact of the problem. Given the size of the stateless population in Madagascar, the persistence of gender discrimination in the nationality law may perpetuate the statelessness status of a notable population in the country. 34. Stateless persons face wide-ranging human rights violations and hardships, including obstacles to accessing education, healthcare – including access to sexual and reproductive healthcare in a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world (468 deaths for every 100,000 births as of 2012) – social services, formal employment, property rights, inheritance, freedom of movement, and identity documentation. Stateless persons are also at a greater risk of human trafficking, early and forced marriage, arbitrary detention, and lack of access to justice. 35. Among the many testimonies of stateless persons in the country, the case of Mr. Ibrahim Ickbal, a stateless person of Indian origin residing in Mahajanga, illustrates the impact of gender-discrimination in the Malagasy Nationality Code and its impact on men. Aged 52, Ibrahim is the father of two children. Until today, he remains the only stateless person in his small family. His wife is Malagasy and so are his children. But she cannot pass her nationality to her spouse. Naturalization is Mr. Ickbal’s only route to citizenship. Unfortunately for him and many others in his circumstances, he has been unable to acquire citizenship through this process. As a father, his stateless status fills him with constant shame. He refuses to legally recognize his children because, according to him, he cannot offer them what they need. Mr. Ickbal works for a local jeweller, and recently took out a loan of five million Ariary from his employer to acquire his new biometric resident card. "With my modest salary, it will take me two years to repay the loan," he said, adding, "It's a huge financial investment, but I still cannot vote or travel." Recommendations 36. Based on the above information, the co-submitting organisations urge reviewing States to make the following recommendations to Madagascar: I. Reform ordinance n60-064 of the Nationality Code to uphold the right of Malagasy women to confer nationality on their foreign or stateless spouse on an equal basis with Malagasy men. II. Immediately end the discriminatory denial of nationality to populations of Indo-Pakistani and Comorian descent and other minority groups in Madagascar, and take all necessary steps to ensure their right to a nationality. III. Ensure that all international and regional obligations related to the right to nationality, prevention and reduction of statelessness, protection of stateless persons, non- discrimination, and birth registration are fully incorporated into domestic law and implemented in practice. IV. Strengthen the collection and monitoring of disaggregated data (including by ethnicity, age, and gender) and conduct a comprehensive mapping on state lessness, the risk of statelessness, and Karana and other affected minority populations in Madagascar, with appropriate safeguards in place to ensure anonymity. V. Accede to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. 6