On International Human Rights Day UN Agencies and Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights urge action to uphold gender-equal nationality rights across the Middle East-North Africa Region

On International Human Rights Day UN Agencies and Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights urge action to uphold gender-equal nationality rights across the Middle East-North Africa Region

According to UNICEF, citizens’ equal right to pass their nationality to their children is a fundamental human right, one that is essential to advancing gender equality, children’s rights and wellbeing, and sustainable development, and to preventing statelessness.

today 24 countries globally maintain nationality laws that limit or prevent women from conferring nationality on their children on an equal basis as men, with twelve of these twenty-four countries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region.

As the world marks Human Rights Day 2022 and the final of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) join the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights in calling for urgent, much-needed reforms to uphold gender-equal nationality rights without delay in MENA and elsewhere.

While approximately half of the countries that limit women’s ability to pass nationality to their children are in MENA, the region has also seen notable progress. Since 2000, six countries – Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen – enacted reforms to advance women’s right to confer nationality on their children. These reforms yielded notable benefits for women, children, families, and societies as a whole – including by improving affected children’s overall well-being, protection and safety, and ensuring their access to education, healthcare, and other social services.

More steps and measures in that direction are still needed.

The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR), UNICEF and UNHCR recently drew attention to the many benefits of gender-equal nationality rights at a September 2022 convening of over sixty government officials, civil society representatives and other actors from 17 Arab states convened in Larnaca, Cyprus. Building on a series of past convenings, including those conducted in partnership with the League of Arab States*, the meeting promoted an exchange of lessons learned from past reform processes and the exploration of opportunities for advances in this area.

“Ensuring that women can pass along their nationality on an equal basis as men advance gender equality, enhances children’s wellbeing and can prevent statelessness. Countries in MENA have made significant progress, with six countries enacting reforms since 2000. However, more remains to be done to ensure that the benefits of such progress for individuals, families and societies can be experienced throughout the region.” – Ayman Gharaibeh, Bureau Director, UNHCR Regional Bureau for the Middle East & North Africa

“Gender-equal nationality laws are essential to women and men’s equal citizenship and their equality in the family. Eliminating gender discrimination in nationality laws is not only the right thing to do, but it is the smart thing to do – with gender-equal nationality laws benefitting individuals, families, and societies as a whole.” – Catherine Harrington, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights Manager

“Break the silence. We stand by you.”

“Break the silence. We stand by you.”

According to UNICEF, “Break the silence. We stand by you.” is a campaign launched yesterday by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the empowerment of Women (UN Women), International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) jointly with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Republic of Moldova on behalf of the coordination mechanism on gender-based violence in humanitarian settings, the Intersectoral Gender-based Violence (GBV) Sub-Working Group.

The campaign aims to raise awareness of the Republic of Moldova’s prevention and response services for gender-based violence among the refugee and host communities and to send a strong message that there should be no tolerance for any form of GBV.

The initiative begins in conjunction with the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls, which calls for coordinated international action to raise awareness, energize advocacy efforts, and share information and innovations in order to put an end to the pandemic of violence against women and girls that has spread throughout the world. The initiatives are part of the UNiTE effort, which aims to eradicate gender-based violence by 2030.

The “Break the silence. We stand by you” joint campaign will run from November 2022 until March 2023 and will promote social cohesion, urging people from all walks of life to acknowledge, take a stand and act against gender-based violence.

Through a series of community outreach events, media partnerships, and social media engagement, the partners will build on the ongoing dialogue about the issue, invite the service providers and the communities to create a supportive environment and raise awareness about the existing services, and foster accountability so that every humanitarian effort provides safe and comprehensive survivor-centered services to those affected or at risk of violence.