Every year, several countries are reviewed by
committees – or ‘treaty bodies’– attached to the major UN human rights conventions
to ensure that they are abiding by their international obligations, and to
question them when they are not. This happens on a rotating basis for countries
across all of the different UN committees. Before the committees address the
countries, they ask review the report prepared by the relevant government about
how the international norms are being implemented. They also collect and review
submissions from NGOs and other organizations as to what they think are the
most pressing human rights issues in the state and what is needed to address
them. NGOs have an added opportunity of physically attending the pre-sessions,
making a short oral statement on identified problems and answering any
questions the committee would like further information on. This July, three
countries in the Middle East and North Africa that still retain an element of
gender discrimination in their nationality laws, came up for review before the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women: Iraq, Qatar and
Bahrain. Although Iraq’s law is now greatly improved, none of these states fully
grant mothers the right transfer nationality to their children on an equal par
to men – a situation which can lead to new cases of statelessness.
This issue tied in perfectly with our recent research
with the Women’s Refugee Commission, “Our
Motherland, Our Country”. Continuing our joint follow-up advocacy , we
considered this to be an ideal opportunity to talk to the CEDAW committee
about the consequences of gendered nationality laws, specifically the problems that
emerged from the findings of this report. So, yesterday I was in Geneva to
give the Statelessness Programme’s first ever briefing of a UN treaty body.
After a mix-up of the starting times and length of session, things finally got
going and I was invited to deliver a
short presentation. This was followed by some questions from the committee, to help
them fill any gaps in knowledge they had on the issue. The presentation we had
prepared contained quotes from some of the testimonials compiled during the WRC
research, contextualizing the issue as a real humanitarian problem,
and highlighting how family unity is being destroyed because of this
discrimination in nationality laws.
NGOs from around the world can come and talk about any
state law or practise they feel is in violation of the convention, and they all
do this together in the same briefing session. This provides a fascinating
opportunity to understand more about other topics which often directly
correlate to our own interests. A very active women's rights NGO from Iraq, for
example, joined the same pre-session I attended and had a lot to say about
Iraq’s flaws in adhering to its CEDAW obligations - they spoke about topics
varying from the rise in cases of FGM to the lack of female representation in
parliament. We also learnt from them of the phenomenon of men who are
identified as 'terrorists' in Iraq, who are forced therefore to live without
the protection of the law and unable to conduct any legal transactions. Some
(informally) marry, have children and often eventually abandon their families
without any legal trace - leaving a new generation of children with no form of
identification and putting them at risk of becoming stateless.
My time at the CEDAW pre-session allowed me to witness
some interesting presentations and a lively question and answer session. It was
clear that the Committee was very eager to hear the voices of people working on
the ground and it was also very satisfying to find that the application and the
procedure itself of briefing such a committee is very simple and easy to
navigate. I admit that I went in with some doubts about this form of advocating
for change, which seemed a rather abstract mechanism of lobbying, far away from
lives of those we had met during the field research. However, actually,
experiencing the process and seeing the real interest and enthusiasm of the
committee and the NGOs involved, I came away newly inspired and would now
firmly vouch for the importance and necessity of continued international
pressure and support – alongside national initiatives – for the promotion of universally
gender neutral nationality laws. We are really looking forward to seeing how the
information we provided will feed into the review and questioning of these
three countries by the committee.
Zahra Albarazi, Researcher
and MENA statelessness expert, Statelessness Programme
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