KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 19
Rights activists have urged the government to ratify two UN conventions, one on Statelessness, 1954, and the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 1961, to address the issues faced by stateless persons.
Presenting a paper at an interaction organised by Forum for Women, Law and Development on the problems of statelessness and the rights protected under the two UN conventions related to problems of statelessness here today, Advocate Binu Lama said the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women had recommended that the government of Nepal ratify the two UN conventions related to the problems of statelessness, yet the government had not even started discussions on the issue.
Lama said 15 million people were estimated to be stateless worldwide. She said that only six countries of Asia Pacific region had ratified the 1961 convention.
She said non-ratification of conventions related to statelessness deprived stateless people of their rights and increased their vulnerability to violence.
Senior Advocate Meera Dhungana said the government, which had the responsibility of implementing the two conventions related to statelessness had not even informed the public about the provisions of the conventions, nor had it started discussion on the CEDAW Committee's recommendations that had urged the government to ratify the two conventions.
Advocate Shusham Gautam who has been representing many stateless people in the court, said that despite CEDAW committee's recommendations, the Government of Nepal had not yet ratified conventions related to problems of statelessness.
Programme Manager of Women for Human Rights Rajin Rayamajhi said his organisation's small research found 160 people without citizenship and that was a valid reason to believe that many thousand people were stateless in Nepal.
Many people from far flung areas do not have means to come to Kathmandu and pursue cases in the courts to obtain Nepali citizenship, she added.
Under Secretary at the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens Mamata Bastola said the government had listed the conventions related to stateless persons as conventions to be ratified and the government had begun discussions about the same.
A version of this article appears in the print on October 20, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
