CASE 6 Women are denied of Citizenship if she has no support from husband and his family 21 years old Meena Paudel (name changed) was married at the age of 17 and has a 5 years old daughter. She had not obtained a citizenship before the marriage. Her marriage is not pleasant as her husband abuses her and his family is not supportive as well. When she went to register the birth of her daughter she was asked to submit her husband’s citizenship. Realizing that she also needs citizenship for everything she applied for it but she was denied by the officials as she could not submit documents asked from her husband’s side. She is not being able to acquire her citizenship and birth registration of her child as the officials ask for documents from her husband and his family but she does not have support from them. Source: Case collected from Saathi Nepal, 2020 27. Due to the non-recognition of independent identity of women in conferring the citizenship to children of women, in particular single mothers, are being denied citizenship certificates and registration of their children, which prevents those women and their children from gaining access to education, opening bank accounts, obtaining driver’s license, voting, managing their property, acquiring travel documents, applying for employment in the public sector and benefiting from social services. CASE 7 Discriminatory Provisions restrict Single Mother to confer Citizenship to her Children As Samita’s (name changed) father’s family was not supporting, her parents lived separately after their marriage. Unfortunately, her father died when she was a child. She was brought up by her mother only and does not have any connection with her father’s family. She needed to submit her birth registration or citizenship certificate to enroll in Bachelor’s level education. So, she went to the local authorities requesting for recommendation for the citizenship but denied for several times asking her to submit either the citizenship certificate of her father, or his death certificate, or any document that shows her connection with her father. Since then she has been going to the concerned authority but she has been denied several times as she is not being able to submit the documents that show her connection with her late father. Source: "National Conference with the People without Citizenship" Organized by FWLD, December 08, 2019 CASE 8 Non-recognition of Independent Identity of a Single Mother Shreya Sakya was brought up by a single mother as she was not accepted by her father and his family when her mother had filed a case of polygamy against her father and legally separated. She has a birth registration from Kathmandu district and received education in Kathmandu. Her mother has her citizenship from Kathmandu district as well. When she turned to 16 years old, she went to apply for recommendation letter for citizenship certificate from the local authority but she was denied stating that they should seek recommendation from her father’s permanent address. Source: Shreya Sakya v. the Government of Nepal, the Ministry of Home Affair set all, Writ No. 075-WO-1016, the Supreme Court of Nepal, 2019 28. The requirement to mention citizenship certificate number of father or mother or of the concerned person while registering vital event, especially the birth, is only for record purpose however, in practice, requiring the name and citizenship information of father and mother or male family member birth registration is discouraging and troublesome. This is because of the perception of local registrars that a birth registration is the solid ground for claiming citizenship later on. 29. The Supreme Court has provided many landmark judgments related to citizenship, where concerned offices were issued directive orders to provide citizenship to the applicants. The Ministry of Home Affairs also issued circulars in order to implement the decisions. However, the implementation of the decisions has benefited the concerned applicants only, despite the Court creating precedents on the issue applicable to other similar cases. The decisions, thus, did not let to a change in the laws, obliging individuals with the same legal shortcomings to file another individual lawsuit. The latter aspect prevents many individuals from easily enforcing their rights to have a citizenship. 8