The provision in the draft constitution says that a child will be given citizenship through decent through mother if the father is not known. But, if the father is identified in future and he turns out to be a foreigner, the child's citizenship shall be altered to naturalized citizenship. There is no such condition mentioned in case of Nepali men.The activists have demanded an end to all kinds of discriminatory provisions regarding citizenship. They said that the interim constitution is more liberal than the proposed draft as it has provision to provide citizenship to children either through mother or father and there is no point in making things difficult now. They are also pressurizing the government to ensure one -third representation of women from judiciary to executive bodies.
More than 25 organizations have been participating in the relay hunger strike. UCPN (Maoist) leader Hisila Yami had reached the venue to express solidarity with the women rights activists on Thursday.
The activists had staged a series of street protest programs before the draft constitution was made public. Lawmakers can file for amendment proposals on the draft statue in the Constituent Assembly until Saturday, September 5.
The activists have said that they will continue their relay hunger strike until the deadline for the submission of the amendment proposals.
"We will continue the ongoing hunger strike until the amendment proposals are discussed in the Constituent Assembly. If our demands are not addressed, we will further discuss about the protest," said advocate Subin Mulmi, who is also an activist.
He added that they were forced to adopt such a form of protest after government turned a deaf ear to their demands.
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