A/HRC/23/23 foreign husbands, has been at least partially made in Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Monaco, Morocco, Rwanda, San Marino, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Turkey and Zimbabwe.49 58. Reform in nationality laws has often accompanied broader initiatives to reach gender equality in various fields. For instance, in Rwanda, women parliamentarians created the Forum for Women Parliamentarians in 1996 with the objective of integrating gender at all levels through, notably, sensitization, strengthening women empowerment, and integrating gender into laws, policies, programmes, projects and budgets.50 Their efforts led to the revision of various laws that discriminated against women, in particular the law on nationality. 59. In addition, certain countries such as Algeria, Morocco, Cyprus, Egypt, Fiji, Ireland, Jamaica, Liechtenstein, Malaysia (partially), the Republic of Korea, Thailand and Turkey have lifted their reservations to article 9 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, an important step towards ensuring women’s equality with men in nationality-related matters. The lifting of reservations should be followed by appropriate legal and policy reform to ensure the realization of rights in practice. 60. Other countries have pledged to reform or are considering reforming their laws on nationality.51 For instance, Lebanon reported that it had set up a ministerial commission to study claims made by civil society organizations to amend the law on nationality. The National Commission for Lebanese Women submitted a project to amend the law on nationality to the commission in June 2012. Senegal also reported that it was considering reforming its nationality code to allow women to transfer their nationality to their husbands and children. 61. Various States indicated in their contributions for the present report that they had also incorporated safeguards into their nationality laws to prevent or reduce statelessness, from which stateless women and their children may benefit such as the conferral of nationality to children born of stateless parents, the prohibition of losing nationality if this results in statelessness, and facilitated procedures for the naturalization of stateless persons. Awareness-raising campaigns to inform the stateless about their options to acquire a nationality have also been conducted. 62. Discriminatory laws on nationality have been challenged in the courts of many countries, as well as before international human rights mechanisms. In some cases, following court decisions, discriminatory laws were amended. The arguments used by petitioners and in the decisions taken by these courts and mechanisms declaring such laws as discriminatory and in violation of human rights provisions could serve as an example of a best practice for other countries. 63. One of the most relevant cases is Attorney General of the Republic of Botswana v. Unity Dow (1992), where the Botswana High Court ruled that the 1984 Citizenship Act violated the Constitution of Botswana in that it discriminated against women on the basis of sex. According to the Act, while the children of Botswana men married to foreigners or children born out of wedlock were entitled to Botswana nationality by birth, children of Botswana women married to foreigners were not. The Court referred in its decision to the 49 50 51 14 See contributions of Australia, Morocco, San Marino, Tunisia and Turkey; UNHCR, Background Note on Gender Equality (see footnote 26); Manby, Citizenship Law in Africa (see footnote 10), p. 45. See www.rwandaparliament.gov.rw/parliament/forumrwpf.aspx. Contributions of Lebanon and Senegal. See also UNHCR, Background Note on Gender Equality (see footnote 26) for more information on specific pledges made by Senegal and Liberia at the UNHCR Ministerial Meeting in 2011.