and lacking the ability to acquire their mother’s nationality due the nationality law’s discrimination against women. 21. In some countries, including Algeria, Egypt and Morocco, Muslim women have the legal right to confer nationality on their children, but are banned from marrying non-Muslims. Despite legal provisions to the contrary, women in such banned inter-religious marriages are often denied the ability to confer nationality on their children, with authorities requiring an unobtainable marriage certificate in order to provide civil documents for children. Women in such circumstances may be compelled to register their child as born out of wedlock, which often comes with great stigma for the mother and child, and could even result in criminal charges and incarceration where extramarital sex is criminalised. 22. In some countries where women lack equal rights to confer nationality on children and spouses, the naturalisation of women’s family members is at the discretion of the state. Where this discretion exists, authorities sometimes reject the citizenship applications of women’s children and spouses on the basis of their (non-dominant) religious identity. For example, prior to Madagascar’s 2016 nationality law reform upholding women’s equal rights to confer nationality on children, the citizenship applications for children of Madagascan women and non-citizen fathers were reportedly rejected due to belonging to minority groups including the Karana, a primarily stateless Muslim population.25 Nationality deprivation as a counter-terrorism measure 23. The last two decades have witnessed a trend of a growing number of States resorting to deprivation of nationality as a counterterrorism and national security measure. While some States have amended their laws to expand existing powers or introduce new powers to enable deprivation of nationality, others have relied on existing powers, which have been construed expansively to apply to situations not previously envisaged. Such measures are likely to be arbitrary and can cause statelessness. They disproportionately target those of minority and migrant heritage and are likely to be discriminatory on the basis of religion. 24. For instance, Islamist entities like Al Qa'ida, ISIS and allies to ISIS, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, are listed as terrorist organisations in the Netherlands,26 whose members can be deprived of nationality, whereas there are no non-Islamist groups on the list (e.g. FARC). The ethno-religious make-up of these groups, raises questions of ethno-religious discrimination. Addressing this situation, the Special Rapporteur on Racism and Xenophobia has stated that: “In light of the ethnic and national origin composition of the Dutch population of dual nationals, these counter-terrorism policies effectively target Dutch-Moroccan dual nationals and Dutch-Turkish dual nationals, and risk fuelling xenophobic rhetoric that 25 Equal Rights Trust, “My Children’s Future,” see pages 2, 51, available at https://www.equalrightstrust.org/ertdocumentbank/My%20Children%27s%20Future%20Ending%20Gender%20Discrimination %20in%20Nationality%20Laws.pdf 26 See article 14(4) Dutch Nationality Act and https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stcrt-2017-13023.html (government gazette).