In the Name of the Mother: Gender and Acquisition of Citizenship in Post Conflict Nepal

This academic paper proposes to examine the historiography of the movement to include the option of children to acquire Nepali citizenship through their mothers. Currently, since the end of conflict in Nepal in 2006, the Constituent Assembly has been grappling with draft provisions in the Constitution, which would enable single mothers (or women married to foreign nationals) to pass on Nepali citizenship onto their children. Although textually speaking, the right to acquire Nepali citizenship through mother is included in the Citizenship Act, 2006; in practice, women have found it an arduous task to enforce the provision in favor of their children. The paper argues that in post-conflict Nepal, dedicated efforts towards realization of women's right to pass on citizenship to their children is only a step towards reducing marginalization of women in a society which has been historically patriarchal. Such efforts will complement the very many truth and reconciliation mechanisms that Nepal is in the process of adopting and would help reduce socio-economic and cultural inequities that Nepali women have faced. The paper will examine in detail, provisions enabling citizenship acquisition in Nepal, both under the draft Constitution as well as the Nepali Citizenship Act, 2006 and implications thereof for acquisition of citizenship through the mother. It will look at extant case law and the difficulties that women have faced in enforcing court decisions that enable them to pass on citizenship to their children, raising the risk of de jure statelessness for children in Nepal.