THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD 75th Pre-Sessional Working Group (03 October - 07 October 2016) CAMEROON Civil Society Submission on the right of every child to acquire a nationality under Article 7 CRC 1 July 2016 Introduction 1. The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (Institute)1 and Citizens Governance Initiatives (CGI)2 welcome the opportunity to make this submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding Serbia’s compliance with Article 7 of the CRC, which states that every child has the right to acquire a nationality. 2. This submission highlights challenges in the realisation of the right of every child to acquire a nationality and the avoidance of childhood statelessness in Cameroon as a result of discrimination, poor implementation of the law and challenges related to birth registration. In light of the Committee’s previous recommendations to Cameroon on birth registration3 as well as those from the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women on the ability of women to acquire, transmit and retain nationality on an equal basis with men and access to birth registration and documentation for women and girls,4 from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on access to the documentation 1 The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion is an independent non-profit organisation committed to promoting the human rights of stateless persons and fostering inclusion to ultimately end statelessness. Addressing childhood statelessness is one of the core thematic priorities of the Institute. The Institute has made thematic submissions to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the child’s right to a nationality and the protection of stateless children in a number of countries including Serbia, South Africa, Estonia, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Sierra Leone. The Institute has also developed a Toolkit to assist civil society organisations prepare submissions to the Committee under this theme. For more information, see: http://www.institutesi.org/ourwork/children.php. 2 Citizens Governance Initiatives (CGI is a non-profit association established under Cameroonian law in 2005, whose vision is to foster positive change and partnership between government, communities, and citizens in protecting the public interest and advancing the wellbeing of citizens in Central Africa. CGI founds its action on domestic and international laws, with activities implemented through research, training, working with the media and providing administrative and legal assistance through community paralegal information centres. 3 CRC/C/CMR/CO/2, para. 33-34, 18 February 2010. 4 CEDAW/C/CMR/CO/4-5, para. 24-25, 28 February 2014.