Via decree, Iraq’s former President Saddam Hussein stripped the Faili Kurds of their Iraqi citizenship in one day (in 1980). While most Roma and other minority groups are citizens of the countries where they live, thousands continue to be stateless in Europe. As a consequence of States’ independence or the establishment of new borders, certain ethnic groups have been excluded from citizenship even though they have resided in the same place for generations. This is the situation facing the Muslim residents (Rohingya) of the Northern Rakhine state in Myanmar, some hill tribes in Thailand, the Bidoun in the Gulf States and various nomadic groups. Often such groups have become so marginalized that even when legislation changes to grant access to citizenship and they become theoretically eligible for citizenship, they encounter almost insuperable obstacles such as the high cost of actually obtaining citizenship and documentation or of travelling to the place where they can obtain it. Nepal provides a case in point. In 2007 it amended its nationality laws to extend citizenship to anyone born in the country before April 1990, including various – previously stateless – minorities. While the authorities undertook a massive citizenship campaign in which they distributed almost 2.6 million certificates in the first four months of 2007, the poorest stateless people were nevertheless unable to acquire citizenship due to prohibitive fees and/or long distances that needed to be travelled to lodge an application. UNHCR monitoring missions also found that, in some communities, it was believed that some women and girls did not need certificates as their interests were represented by their husbands or fathers and because men did not want to share rights to property. In addition, contrary to the law, some authorities required the cooperation of the husband or father when processing applications submitted by married women, women and girls.29 Statelessness arises also as a result of discrimination against women and/or children. In some countries, marriage or the dissolution of marriage may also constitute a ground for the automatic loss of citizenship. Additionally, while a number of countries in sub-Saharan and North Africa, the Middle East and Asia have started to reform legislation to address this, in at least 30 countries only men can pass on their citizenship on to their children. The children who are born of women from these countries married to foreigners, or who are born out of wedlock, may end up stateless if their father is stateless, if he cannot confer nationality under the nationality law of his State or is unable or refuses to take the necessary administrative steps with the authorities of his country on behalf of his children. In Kuwait, for instance, nationality can by law only be passed on through the male line, although Kuwaiti nationality can be acquired by a foundling born in Kuwait and may also be granted by decree to any person born in or outside Kuwait to a Kuwaiti mother whose father is unknown or whose kinship to his father has not been legally established.30 Similarly, in Senegal, children born to male nationals always acquire nationality of the state, while women can only confer nationality in exceptional circumstances. Children born in wedlock to Senegalese mothers and foreign fathers do not have the right to acquire Senegalese citizenship. Children born out of wedlock can acquire Senegalese nationality if the person who establishes parentage to a child is Senegalese.31 Although these practices may be presented as legal technicalities, they in fact constitute a clear form of gender discrimination.32 24 29 UNHCR, UNHCR Handbook for the Protection of Women and Girls, January 2008, p.190. It should be noted in addition that draft constitutional provisions on citizenship and fundamental rights issued in November 2009 further restrict access to citizenship, raising the prospect of a significant increase in the size of the stateless population in Nepal. 30 Nationality Law [Kuwait], 1959 (and subsequently amendments), Articles 2 and 3, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b4ef1c.html. In the latter scenario, the Minister may afford such children the same treatment as that afforded to Kuwaiti nationals until they reach their majority. Mapping statelessness