A/HRC/36/30 women’s empowerment, social protection, economic development/poverty eradication, children’s/youth welfare and ending violence against women and children. 30 (c) A wide range of actors, including parliamentarians (such as parliamentary women’s caucuses), the judiciary, 31 national human rights institutions, civil society organizations (including organizations working on statelessness, women’s rights, children’s rights and human rights in general), the media, communities, development partners and affected persons (including children and spouses of women affected by discriminatory nationality laws) played key roles. They could contribute to creating an environment conducive to law reform, by generating arguments in favour of reform and raising awareness and clearing up misunderstandings related to women’s equal nationality rights. Some experts underlined the crucial role played by civil society organizations and the media in successful law reforms.32 (d) The active participation of rights-holders in the reform process was a crucial element for success. The Government should ensure that affected persons and civil society organizations are consulted and enable their free, active and meaningful participation in the law reform discussions, including assessment and analysis, designing and deliberation on the law. One expert reiterated the key role played by democratic movements and campaigns by women’s rights groups to generate political will to advance law reform. Women should be seen as active agents for change. Facilitating women’s public participation in general, including within parliaments and in Governments, created an enabling environment for the reform of nationality laws. Wide consultations, including with citizens living outside the country, such as diaspora or expatriates, could be useful. 33 (e) One of the biggest challenges for a nationality law reform was resistance within society, on the basis of persistent patriarchal and discriminatory gender stereotypes combined with the intersectoral forms of discrimination that women face. To overcome such challenges, the Government may wish to consider: (i) making the voices and testimonies of affected persons heard (in some countries, creating opportunities to listen to the testimonies of affected persons in parliament, at the grass-roots level and through the media had proved to be a powerful means of creating a support base for reforms); 34 (ii) working with civil society, including women’s organizations, human rights organizations and the media to raise awareness with stakeholders and the public on the significant individual and social costs of discrimination against women in nationality rights, and the benefits of reform for affected persons, their families and the country at large; (iii) assessing if broader gender-equality agendas would create an environment conducive to nationality law reform (in some countries, combining advocacy messages for nationality law reform with a broader agenda, such as gender equality, had resulted in stronger support);35 (iv) disseminating widely recommendations issued by international and regional human rights mechanisms with regard to nationality rights and informing national stakeholders about the commitments made by the Government with regard to the processes and timelines for law reform in international forums; and (v) working with religious leaders to explore feminist interpretations of religious teachings and texts to demystify religious interpretations that go against gender equality and women’s rights; (f) Experts from the Governments and civil society organizations indicated that the interaction with the United Nations human rights mechanisms, in particular the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, had been strategically important processes to use. In several countries, interaction with such mechanisms had 30 See, for example, the experience of Senegal in “Good Practices Paper” (footnote 29 above). See A/HRC/23/23, paras. 62-66. 32 Experience of Algeria, Indonesia and Madagascar shared by the experts. 33 Experience of Indonesia and Somalia shared by the experts. 34 Experience of Indonesia shared by an expert. See also “Good Practices Paper” (footnote 29 above). 35 Experience shared by the experts from Algeria and Somalia. 31 8