Women demand equal rights on citizenship

March 1, 2006
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Women rights activists have demanded that women should have equal rights in citizenship issues.

Addressing the first national conference on ‘Women’s equal right on Citizenship’ organized by the Civil Society Alliance for Women’s Equal Rights in Citizenship in the capital on Tuesday, former justice of Supreme Court Laxman Aryal stressed that women are barred from their right to citizenship against the provision of equality in the constitution.

Advocate Sapana Pradhan Malla, president of the Forum for Women Law and Development (FWLD), demanded that children should be issued citizenship in the name of mother. The state should accept descent from women, she added. She further said that the issue should be integrated with the agenda of political parties.

Asta Laxmi Shakya of CPN-UML said that discrimination against women were due to patriarchal social system and stressed the need to implement the commitments made by state, political parties and social organisations.

Maushami Sen and her team performed a drama depicting picture of children without citizenship born from raped women.

The conference was attended by women rights activists from 50 districts.

CPN-UML had recently adopted a resolution that children, whose father was not recognised or was dead, should be given citizenship in the name of mother. A few months earlier, the Supreme Court also ordered the government to arrange for citizenship to children whose father was not recognized. According to government statistics, over 1.1 million Nepalis have not received citizenship.