Introduction victims of violence, primarily by non-state actors, and the remaining small numbers of Christians, Sikhs, and Baha’i populations often live covertly. Aspects of Nepal’s new Constitution (2015) have a discriminatory impact on the country’s religious minorities, in particular Muslims (4.4 per cent) and Christians (1.4 per cent) who have reported fear of rising hostility in recent years. For example, despite being declared a secular state in 2006, Article 26(3) of the 2015 constitution has carried over provisions from previous constitutions criminalising all forms of proselytization while the Criminal Code, adopted in 2017, banning religious conversion has contributed to a reported increase in police harassment of Christians accused of conversion activities.4 In Bhutan and the Maldives, efforts to homogenise society have severely curtailed FoRB, and even the ability of non-Buddhists and non-Muslims, respectively, to acquire citizenship. One of the historically time-honoured ways of dealing with discrimination, particularly religious discrimination, is to seek refuge in a third country, and South Asia is no stranger to this phenomenon. With the exception of Bhutan and the Maldives, all South Asian countries are home to voluntary and involuntary migrants, most of whom not only do not enjoy the same rights as the citizens of the country where they have sought refuge, but are also generally looked upon with suspicion by the host communities. Apart from Afghanistan, none of the other South Asian countries are party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, thereby absolving themselves of any responsibilities towards them. All South Asian countries have also contrived to render stateless various groups of people, whether it be based on religion, ethnicity, gender, or otherwise. No country from South Asia is party to either the 1954 Convention on Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The countries of South Asia, thus, contribute to the global and regional refugee population and, at the same time, are also home to a large number of refugees (Table 1). Although Bhutan and the Maldives do not serve as destinations for 4 See, for instance, ‘Foreign Christians arrested on charges of “converting” in Nepal’, The Pathway, August 8, 2019, https://mbcpathway.com/2019/08/08/ foreign-christians-arrested-on-charges-of-converting-in-nepal. xxv