Focus Development Association, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 34th Session of the Universal Periodic Review Madagascar Introduction 1. Focus Development Association1, the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR)2 and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (the Institute)3 make this joint submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the human rights challenges pertaining to gender discrimination in the nationality law and denial of the right to a nationality in Madagascar. 2. This submission focuses on: I. Gender discrimination in the nationality law of Madagascar that denies women the right to confer nationality on non-national spouses on an equal basis with men; and II. The denial of the right to a nationality and resultant statelessness and human rights challenges faced by minority communities in Madagascar, such as those of Indo-Pakistani4 and Comorian descent, and people of mainland African origin. 3. This submission draws on extensive national and international experience of the co-submitting organisations in research, advocacy, direct service provision and awareness raising on the above issues. 4. While recognizing the need for further reform of Madagascar’s nationality law to remove remaining gender-discriminatory provisions, the co-submitting organisations applaud the important steps taken by the government, since its last Universal Periodic Review, to enact nationality law reforms to uphold the right of Malagasy women to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis with Malagasy men. The co-submitting organisations also register their appreciation for Madagascar’s leadership in sharing lessons learned from its reform process and the benefits of these reforms in numerous international and regional forums, in partnership with the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights. 1 Focus Development Association is an independent non-profit organization that works to advance gender equality, combat statelessness, and support sustainable development and human rights education in Madagascar. FDA is the UNHCR partner in Madagascar in charge of “Prevention and reduction of statelessness and refugee” projects since 2014. https://focusdev2013.wordpress.com/ 2 The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (www.equalnationalityrights.org) mobilises international action for the removal of gender discriminatory provisions from all nationality laws through its coalition of national and international organisations and activists. 3 The Institute (www.institutesi.org) is an independent non-profit organisation committed to an integrated, human rights based response to the injustice of statelessness and exclusion through a combination of research, education, partnerships and advocacy. Established in August 2014, it is the first and only global centre committed to promoting the human rights of stateless persons and ending statelessness. The Institute has made over 38 country specific UPR submissions on the human rights of stateless persons, and also compiled summaries of the key human rights challenges related to statelessness in all countries under review under the 23rd to the 33rd UPR Sessions. For more information on the Institute’s UPR advocacy, see http://www.statelessnessandhumanrights.org/upr-universal-periodic-review/resources-database. 4 Referred to as Karana by some, this population holds that the term is stigmatizing and undermines their dignity. 1