Future of 1.7 million children uncertain as they fail to get citizenship from their mother’s name

Published On: March 27, 2023 02:00 PM NPT By: Republica | @RepublicaNepal

KATHMANDU, March 27: Stakeholders have pointed out that the future of some 1.7 million children has become uncertain due to the lack of a system to grant citizenship to them through the names of their mothers.

While discussing the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the capital, the stakeholders disclosed the data that according to the latest census, 1.7 million children are living with their single mothers in Nepal.

They said that the Constitution of Nepal and the Citizenship Act still provide that only the father can grant citizenship to the children, but the provision and behavior of the mother to look for the father in one way or another means that Nepali citizen mothers are deprived of providing citizenship to their children and have to face a very complicated process.

The stakeholders have pointed out that many Nepali youths and children in the country have to stop in various work processes due to the current process of citizenship distribution, which deprives mothers from providing citizenship to their children.

Among these, children of single women, children born to women who have worked abroad, children born to women working in the entertainment sector, children born to policemen who got married and ran away, children born to fathers who lived temporarily and ran away, children born to single mothers after the death of their fathers, children who grew up under the shelter of their mothers after divorce, are affected.

"During the search for the necessary evidence by the administration and government employees who distribute citizenship, even in the case of a Nepali citizen mother, children born for various reasons are stranded as there is no clue where their father is," said Sabin Shrestha, an advocate of the Women's Law and Rights Forum.

The participants of the discussion also said that some women were forced to commit suicide as they were not able to provide citizenship to their children. The stakeholders have demanded that in the upcoming Citizenship Amendment Bill, if the mother is a Nepali citizen, citizenship should be granted to her children without the father. They also stated that the legal provisions related to citizenship are against the constitution and against various international conventions.