UN Study focus of WUNRN

Juridical Aspects

A.1.International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights

B.1.CEDAW - Article 9 of CEDAW provides for equality between women and men

in the bestowal and retention of nationality, and in according nationality to

children.

2.Convention on the Rights of the Child

Factual Aspects

C.Forms of Discrimination Arising from the Status of Women in the Family

2.Forms of Discrimination Related to Nationality -From the UN Study text:

137."In many countries mothers have fewer rights than fathers to transmit

nationality..."

4.Inheritance & Property

UN Study Conclusions & Recommendations

A.Internal Measures

1.Prevention

198.(v)"Laws should be abrogated or amended to conform to international

provisions on ... property, nationality, and civil status.

(vi)"Economic and social rights of women should be affirmed since lack of

property rights excludes women from decision making in family and society."

Selected statements UN Division on the Advancement of Women, Department of Economic and Social Affairs Booklet: Women, Nationality, and Citizenship:

*The right to own land may also be contingent on nationality. ....As the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women noted in its General Recommendation 21 on Equality in Marriage and Family Relations:

CEDAW Committee Recommendation 21:

"Nationality is critical to full participation in society. In general, States confer nationality on those who are born in that country. Nationality can also be acquired by reason of settlement or granted for humanitarian reasons, such as statelessness. Without status as nationals or citizens, women are deprived of the right to vote or to stand for public office, and may be denied access to public benefits and a choice of residence. Nationality should be capable of change by an adult woman and should not be arbitrarily removed because of marriage or dissolution of marriage or because her husband or father changes his nationality."

*Historically, many States adopted the patriarchal position that a woman's legal status is acquired through her relationship to a man - first her father and then her husband......Laws that entrench the principle of dependent personality (as on the husband) disempower married women by depriving them of any choice about their nationality.

*Obstacles to the implementation of human rights standards:

-International law accords States considerable discretion with respect to the

conferral of nationality upon individuals.

-Equality in nationality law can be seen as contrary to traditional or customary

laws and practices.

-There are inadequate linkages between migration, trafficking, prostitution,

immigration laws, and human rights requirements.

"The intersection of legal issues of nationality, immigration, discrimination, poverty, migration, violence against women and the family, along with gendered stereotypes about migration patterns and personal relationships, undermines women's enjoyment of a range of civil, political, economic and social rights, and excludes them from the benefits of citizenship. Further action to overcome these obstacles is required at both international and national levels."

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Millions of children "invisible": UNICEF

By Jeremy Lovell | December 14, 2005

LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of the world's neediest children are not even a blip on the radar of their own governments because there is no record of their birth, the United Nation's Children's Fund UNICEF said on Wednesday.

In its annual State of the World's Children report "Excluded and Invisible," UNICEF said one-third of the estimated 150 million children born worldwide each year were not registered -- and the number was growing.

"Birth registration is vital to really start to know the extent of the problem, how many children there are out there, how many abuses are going on," report author David Anthony told Reuters in an interview.

Children not registered at birth may never officially exist, making it easy for governments to ignore them and for traffickers to make them disappear without risk of retribution.

From that stemmed an array of problems from pedophile abuse to slavery, the report said, estimating that 1.8 million children entered the sex industry, 5.7 million were sold into slavery and 1.2 million were trafficked each year.

"These numbers are huge, and we do have to push several buttons in every case," said UNICEF child protection chief Karin Landgren. "So we have to start by shining that light on the plight of these children."

But equally AIDS orphans and those forced into early marriages accounted for millions of children who simply disappeared either through being cast out by their communities and taking to the streets or just ceasing to be seen.

"Part of what this report does is to highlight the issue to the public to create an outrage about what is going on," UNICEF chief Ann Veneman said.

SEX TRAFFICKING

She said sex trafficking was an increasing phenomenon -- driven in part by cheap flights making sex tourism easier and in part by the spread of the Internet.

"Trafficking needs to be looked at as a global problem that is not just a developing world problem ... because the demand often comes from the developed world," she said.

And it was not just governments that bore the responsibility for taking action -- although they had the primary function of monitoring their own populations and ensuring that they enforced their own basic laws.

"The recommendations in this year's report particularly make it clear that it is not just governments that are involved here. Civil society has a huge role to play, communities have a huge role to play," the report's author Anthony said.

"It takes bold and courageous action to tackle some of these things in many countries," he added.

But matters were slowly improving.

"Just looking at governments' reactions in recent years, we have seen enormous changes. If governments talk about these issues -- as we have seen with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa -- it sends a signal that it is OK to talk about these things," protection chief Landgren said.

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