REGIONAL OVERVIEW Restrictions on the basis of gender Gender discrimination in nationality laws has also played a fundamental role in creating statelessness in the region. In South Asia, Nepal’s gender discriminatory provisions restrict the ability of women to confer nationality onto their children and may have led to the statelessness of as many as 400–500,000 persons.97 In Southeast Asia, children born outside of Malaysia to Malaysian citizen mothers married to foreign fathers, as well as children born in Malaysia to Malaysian fathers and foreign mothers in an unregistered/unrecognised marriage may have been rendered stateless through gender discriminatory provisions.98 While there has been extensive advocacy in recent years for the amendment of these provisions,99 available figures on the number of children affected are not available. While the laws of the Maldives contain religious discrimination (and potentially some gender discriminatory provisions),100 no statistics are available on the impact of these provisions on populations in the Maldives.101 As previously mentioned, none of the citizenship laws of East Asian states have gender, ethnic or religiously discriminatory provisions. In the Pacific, children born outside of the territory to mothers with Kiribati citizenship cannot access citizenship automatically.102 However, unlike other Pacific Island states, Kiribati has a small overseas population, with approximately 5,000 I-Kiribati’s living in New Zealand and Australia.103 There are no reliable statistics on the number of persons this provision has affected. Additionally, the citizenship law of Singapore contains gender discriminatory provisions which limit the ability of mothers to confer citizenship onto children born in the state “…whose fathers are diplomats or members of foreign forces during times of war”.104 Both ethnic and gender discrimination were seen in the Philippines’ citizenship laws between the 1930s and 1970s REGIONAL OVERVIEW that rendered persons born to Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers, and their descendants, stateless.105 Citizenship Stripping Citizenship stripping by states has wide ranging impacts across the Asia-Pacific region. In East Asia, following the end of the Second World War, and Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean peninsula approximately 52,000 ethnic Koreans were stripped of Japanese citizenship.106 In 2021, more than 26,000 persons and their descendants have not had their citizenship status resolved.107 In both Taiwan and South Korea, foreign spouses whose marriage is determined to be a ‘sham’ or ‘fraudulent’ have been stripped of their citizenship and rendered stateless (as both states have required the renunciation of one’s former nationality prior to gaining the nationality of their spouse).108 This has had implications for Southeast Asian states as the majority of marriage migrants in East Asia originate from Vietnam, and have returned to Vietnam stateless following relationship breakdowns.109 In Southeast Asia (with implications in the Pacific), prior to amendment in 2006, under the citizenship laws of Indonesia persons residing outside of the territory for more than 5 years without registration were stripped of their Indonesian citizenship.110 This law is estimated to have affected an estimated 10–15,000 West Papuans in Papua New Guinea and at least 6,000 Indonesian migrants in the Philippines.111 While steps have been taken to resolve statelessness among these population groups, especially in the Philippines, thousands may remain stateless.112 Within South Asia, members of ethnic Nepali communities known as ‘Lhotshampas’ living in the south of the country were stripped of their Bhutanese citizenship in the late 1980s and expelled from the country with as many as 100,000 refugees arriving in Nepal during the 1990s.113 Within India, the final National Register of citizenship published in 2019 excluded 1.9 million residents from the list – essentially stripping them of their citizenship. Persons excluded from the National Register of Citizens must in turn apply to the government or foreigners’ tribunal to have their citizenship status verified, with those unable to verify their status as citizens rendered stateless.114 In Sri Lanka, Hill Country Tamils were indirectly stripped of their citizenship at Sri Lankan independence in 1948 who have since been granted citizenship.115 Childhood Statelessness Legal safeguards against childhood statelessness including the protection of foundlings and children born to stateless parents are not universal across the Asia-Pacific region. The citizenship laws of less than half of the states in the region (15 states: Australia, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Childhood Statelessness The citizenship laws of less than half of the states in the region (15 states: Australia, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Mongolia, New Zealand, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Tuvalu and Vietnam) explicitly provide that foundling children will be considered citizens. The citizenship laws of 10 states (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kiribati, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka) provide some/limited protection for foundling children under their law. Laws of 13 states (Bhutan, Brunei, China, India, Federated States of Micronesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu) there is no explicit protection for foundling children to gain citizenship. Mongolia, New Zealand, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Tuvalu and Vietnam) explicitly provide that foundling children will be considered citizens.116 The citizenship laws of 10 states (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kiribati, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka) provide some/limited protection for foundling children under their law.117 Under the laws of 13 states (Bhutan, Brunei, China, India, Federated States of Micronesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu) there is no explicit protection for foundling children to gain citizenship. Similarly, less than half of the states (13 states: Australia, China, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea, Timor-Leste and Tuvalu) provide citizenship to children born on their territories who would otherwise be stateless.118 There is also limited protection provided under the laws of 10 states (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Samoa and Vietnam) to stateless persons born on the territory.119 However, there is no protection under the laws of the remaining 14 states (Bhutan, Brunei, India, the Maldives, Federated States of Micronesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Palau, the Philippines, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tonga and Vanuatu). Myanmar is the only state in the region that explicitly provides differentiated categories of citizenship (outside of naturalized/non-naturalized citizenship distinctions).121 Differential treatment between persons classified as citizens by descent or citizens by birth, including limitations of citizens by descent to pass on citizenship to children exist in four states 22 23 STATELESSNESS ENCYCLOPEDIA ASIA PACIFIC REPORT 2023