public education, healthcare and other services; increased risk of gender-based violence and impeded family reunification.5 For example, when foreign men are denied access to their Qatari spouses’ nationality, they may be forced to live away from their children due to challenges in acquiring residency permits and obstacles to employment, or they may try to take the children away from the mother and back to their own country. Threatened family separation following the GCC dispute: an open wound The diplomatic crisis with GCC countries combined with Qatari women’s inability to confer nationality on children and spouses on an equal basis with Qatari men resulted in threats to family unity and other hardships. Children and spouses of Qatari women who are denied access to Qatari citizenship and who hold the nationality of other GCC countries feared expulsion from Qatar or an inability to return to the country. One Qatari woman married to a Bahraini man reported that her family could not visit her husband’s relatives, stating: “We are afraid to try and go to Bahrain because my husband and children might be banned from coming back to Qatar.”6 In order to address the threat of family separation caused by the diplomatic crisis and the inability of Qatari women to confer nationality on an equal basis with men, the government implemented a new policy permitting permanent residency status to the children and spouses of Qatari women.7 Though a positive development for affected families, the children and spouses of Qatari women continue to be denied access to a range of rights and privileges as a result of Qatari women’s inability to confer nationality on an equal basis with men. Recommendations In the context of the issues raised in this submission, and drawing the Committee’s attention in particular to the failure of Qatar to implement the previous recommendations of the Committee, the co-submitting organizations respectfully urge the Committee to recommend that the government of Qatar: 1. Ensure that all necessary steps are taken to amend the nationality law to enable Qatari women to transfer nationality to their children and spouses without restriction, on an equal basis to men, in accordance with international standards and the Constitution of Qatar. 2. Remove Qatar’s reservation to and ensure full compliance with the entirety of CEDAW Article 9. Equality Now, Campaign to End Sex Discrimination in Nationality and Citizenship Laws, 2013 (updated May 2014, Feb. 2015), available at http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/NationalityReport_EN.pdf 6 Al Jazeera - Siege of Qatar 'arbitrarily splitting up families', 14 December 2017, available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/siege-qatar-arbitrarily-splitting-families-171214163542163.html 7 Bloomberg - Qatar Is First Gulf State to Offer Expat Permanent Residency, September 5, 2018 available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-05/qatar-is-first-gulf-nation-to-grant-expats-permanentresidency 5 3