SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: SOUTH ASIA citizenship law of Nepal provides that foundling children are considered citizens by descent until their father or mother is identified.1971 SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: SOUTH ASIA be stateless” either “by birth, by operation of law, or upon and application”.1977 Citizenship stripping The jus soli provision that exists in the citizenship laws of two countries (Bangladesh and Pakistan) may provide foundling children access to citizenship, however in-practice, the application of these laws are less generous.1972 Pakistan’s jus soli provisions on paper provide citizenship to all children born on the territory of Pakistan, except those whose fathers have diplomatic immunity, or are enemy aliens.1973 However, the children of Afghan refugees who have resided in Pakistan for decades have explicitly been excluded from the operation of these jus soli provisions with the High Court of Pakistan explicitly labelling Afghan refugees as foreigner and aliens.1974 The citizenship laws of three countries (Bhutan, India and the Maldives) do not address access to citizenship for foundlings. The citizenship laws of three countries (Bhutan, India and the Maldives) do not address access to citizenship for foundlings. None of the countries in South Asia provide explicit protection for children born to stateless parents. The jus soli provisions of two States (Bangladesh and Pakistan) would appear to provide access to citizenship for stateless children, however their application in practice is far less certain.1975 While there is no specific provision providing for access of citizenship for stateless children at birth in Afghanistan, however under the citizenship laws of the country stateless persons may obtain citizenship at the age of 18.1976 Bhutanese, Indian, Maldivian, Nepali, and Sri Lankan citizenship laws do not address access to citizenship for children of stateless parents. Article 1 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness states that State parties “shall grant nationality to a person born in its territory who would otherwise 178 In the late 1980’s, members of ethnic Nepali communities known as ‘Lhotshampas’ living in the south of Bhutan were labelled as non-citizens through a census count, stripping them of their Bhutanese citizenship.1978 In the early 1990’s the Bhutanese government began expelling persons from their land and the country with as many as 100,000 refugees arriving in Nepal during the decade.1979 The history of the National Register of Citizens in Assam is politically complex and driven by ethnic and religious tension spanning back to the period of partition between India and Pakistan. In 2019, the final National Register of citizenship 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.1980 Historic statelessness among Hill Country Tamils was largely based on the discriminatory implementation of citizenship laws at the time of Sri Lankan independence in 1948 which indirectly excluded Hill Country Tamils from citizenship.1981 Administrative barriers Administrative and practical barriers, including security concerns, restrictions imposed by male family members and lack of financial means have fundamentally limited the ability of women in Afghanistan to gain identity documentation and to confirm their status as citizens.1982 Similarly in Nepal, administrative and policy barriers affect the ability of marginalised groups including STATELESSNESS ENCYCLOPEDIA ASIA PACIFIC (DETAILED VERSION) LGBTQIA+ communities and women from accessing citizenship certificates.1983 Children born to citizen mothers in Nepal continue to face a number of administrative barriers in gaining birth registration and citizenship certificates.1984 The arbitrary levels of discretion applied by authorities, who consist mostly of men, in issuing documentation has often denied women and their children documentation due to discriminatory patriarchal beliefs.1985 Further, the same discriminatory discretion is seen in distribution of birth certificates, causing a lack of birth certificates among marginalized groups which presents another barrier in accessing citizenship.1986 FIGURE 9 Birth registration rates of the countries in South Asia Afghanistan 42%1994 (2015) Bangladesh 58%1995 (2022) Bhutan 88%1996 (2022) India 89%1997 (2021) Maldives 99%1998 (2017) Pakistan 42%1999 (2018) Nepal 77%2000 (2019) ≥90%2001 (2009) Sri Lanka Administrative and policy practice have led to the citizenship laws of Bangladesh shifting in application from jus soli to jus sanguinis in their application.1987 This ‘paradigmatic policy shift’1988 has compounded intergenerational statelessness among children born in the country, especially among Rohingya refugees. In 2020, it was estimated that more than 75,000 Rohingya children have been born in Cox’s Bazar since 2017.1989 In April 2022, it was reported that an official count found that on average 95 children were born per day to Rohingya parents in refugee camps,1990 accounting for this, an additional 70,000 stateless Rohingya children may have been born in Bangladesh in the past two years. In India, barriers to birth registration among Sri Lankan refugee populations and ethnic minority groups including the Kutchi community residing in border regions of the country places these populations at risk of statelessness.1991 Discriminatory administrative barriers are largely the cause of statelessness among ethnic Bengali communities in Pakistan. Despite their right to citizenship existing under the written law,1992 it is estimated that 70–80% of the Bengali population in Pakistan do not have identity documents.1993 The position of ethnic Bengalis was worsened 0 20 40 60 80 100 Source: “Birth and Death Registration Completeness” (UN Statistics Division, April 2023); “Data Warehouse,” UNICEF DATA; “CRVS Case Studies: Bhutan” (UNICEF, September 2023). through the introduction of digitized ID cards, with the government discriminating and, in some cases, stripping persons of citizenship by labelling Bengali community members as ‘aliens’.2002 In the Maldives, children born to non-Muslim parents, to parents of unrecognized inter-religious marriages, to one foreign parent and those born as a result of unrecognized child marriages often remain unregistered.2003 As a result, they experience denial of education as they are unable to provide identity documentation in order to enroll in school or access government services.2004 Requirement of birth registration for citizenship acquisition Birth registration is especially linked to citizenship acquisition in Bangladesh2005, Bhutan, the Maldives, while India explicitly provides that a birth REPORT 2024 179