THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD 78th Pre-Sessional Working Group (14/05 – 01/06 2018) Bahrain Civil Society Submission on the right of every child to acquire a nationality under Article 7 CRC 1st March 2018 Introduction 1. The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (the Institute),1 and Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)2 welcome the opportunity to make this submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding Bahrain’s compliance towards every child’s right to acquire a nationality under Article 7 of the CRC. 2. This joint submission focuses on the child’s right to acquire a nationality (article 7 CRC) and the child’s right to preserve his or her nationality (article 8 CRC). Consequently, it looks at practices related to the arbitrary deprivation of and access to nationality in Bahrain, as well as resultant statelessness, which significantly undermine the enjoyment of human rights of many children. It draws on years of research, advocacy, awareness raising and direct support related experience both in Bahrain and internationally, of the submitting organisations.3 3. The Institute and ADHRB hope that the Committee will draw on this submission to raise the issue of realising the right of every child to acquire a nationality in its List of Issues for Bahrain, and address recommendations to the Government of Bahrain in its Concluding Observations to 1 For more information see http://institutesi.org/ For more information see http://www.adhrb.org/ 3 In 2016 the co-submitting organisations made a joint Universal Periodic Review submission on Bahrain, which can be found here: http://www.institutesi.org/BahrainUPR2016.pdf 2