As indicated above, the Nepali legal framework and the manner in which it is implemented does not comply with its obligations under Articles 7 & 8 CRC. Following are key areas of concern in this regard:  Article 8(2)(b) of the Interim Constitution of Nepal 2007 states that anyone “whose father or mother is a citizen of Nepal at the birth of such person” is eligible for Nepali citizenship. However, Article 8(7) of the Interim Constitution provides that the children of Nepali women and foreign men can only access citizenship through naturalisation, and not through descent. There is no similar restriction on men. One of the consequences of Article 8(7), is that state authorities in practice refuse to accept citizenship applications submitted only by mothers, as they require proof of the father’s identity to establish that he is not a foreigner. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of naturalisation applications do not result in the conferral of nationality. Research conducted by FWLD reveals that in the first six years of the implementation of these provisions, not a single naturalisation application was successful.  Poor levels of birth registration5 enhance the likelihood of statelessness, as without a birth certificate, it is difficult for single women applying on behalf of their children, to establish paternity.  The Nepali practice of conferring citizenship documentation after the age of 16 further exacerbates the situation. On the one hand, it is likely that this practice is a violation of Nepal’s obligations under Article 8 CRC to respect the child’s right to an identity. On the other, the further the process to confirm nationality is pushed back, the greater the likelihood that nationality will be denied (due to the increased likelihood of the father being out of the picture and/or documentation being lost), thus undermining Nepal’s Article 7 obligation.  In addition to the above examples of discriminatory/inadequate law and policy, the attitudes of public servants and first instance decision makers in Nepal remain largely discriminatory towards women and patriarchal. This prevalent attitude heightens the possibility of children being rendered stateless. While the Nepali Constitutional reform process is an opportunity to address this situation, the current draft text, if passed, would almost certainly result in even greater numbers of stateless children and other violations of children’s rights. The present draft reads: “for the child to be a citizen of descent both the father AND6 mother need to be citizens of Nepal during the time of birth”. This proposed ‘levelling down’ instead of ‘levelling up’ approach, will not eradicate discrimination and its negative consequences on children. Instead, it threatens to impose the same unrealistic barriers that single female parents face in conferring nationality to their children on single male parents as well. As the draft provision requires both parents to be citizens of Nepal (and implicitly both to play a role in the application process), the likelihood of more children being rendered stateless as a result is extremely high. The general patriarchal and discriminatory attitudes towards women are likely to mean that single women and their children will be particularly disadvantaged. Nepali women’s inability to confer nationality to foreign spouses also threaten a child’s right to know and be cared for by his or her parents. For example, when foreign men are denied access to their spouses’ nationality, they may be forced to live away from their children due to challenges in acquiring residency permits and obstacles to employment. Violation of Articles 24 and 28 CRC Nepal’s discriminatory nationality law also negatively impacts children’s access to healthcare and wellbeing, in violation of Article 24 CRC. Children of Nepali women who are unable to access their mother’s citizenship as a result of gender discriminatory nationality laws may be required to pay higher fees than citizens for healthcare services. Similarly, gender discrimination in Nepal’s nationality laws impedes a children’s access to education,7 in violation 5 According to UNICEF, between 2005 and 2012, only 42.3% of births were registered in the country. See http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nepal_nepal_statistics.html. 6 7 Emphasis added Ibid.; Open Society Justice Initiative, Children’s Right to a Nationality, available at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/RelatedMatters/OtherEntities/OSJIChildrenNationalityFactsheet.pdf