NFA’s Strategic Planning Retreat

Date: September 24 and 25, 2022

NFA organized a two-day strategic planning retreat on September 24 and 25, 2022 in Dhulikhel, Nepal. The retreat was attended by NFA’s Board Member – Evan Jones, Executive Director – Subin Mulmi, Director of Operations – Ranjeeta Silwal, and Partnership Officer Suchi Purohit.

On Day 1 of the workshop, the NFA team took stock of the work done by the organization in the last one year. This was followed by discussion on the ongoing programs and projects of NFA. On Day 2 the team discussed the Strategic Plan and prepared a roadmap for 2023.

Some key outcomes of the two-day discussion are provided below:

  1. NFA will provide Secretariat service to the Regional Alliance formation process and offer to provide the service to the newly formed Regional Alliance.
  2. NFA will finalize the Statelessness Mapping Report by the end of 2022 and launch the report in January 2023. The report will be titled ‘Statelessness Encyclopedia Asia Pacific’ or SEAP.
  3. NFA will expand its work beyond Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and Nepal, and speak to possible partners in Myanmar and the Philippines from 2023 onwards.
  4. NFA will increase engagement with UN bodies in addition to making submissions to the Treaty Bodies and UPR from 2023 onwards.
  5. NFA will try to participate in regional and global events on statelessness and refugees. 

 

Podcast on Statelessness

Date: September 13, 2022

NFA and Citizenship Affected People’s Network (CAPN) present to you ‘State of Statelessness’ which is a podcast that explores the lives of stateless persons, activists and lawyers working on statelessness in Nepal. Ten episodes have been recorded for the first season which is aired every week on the official youtube channel of CAPN. The snippets of the podcast can be found on CAPN’s instagram and tiktok accounts.

Here is the trailer of the first episode.

Teaser of the First episode.

Link to the full video: State of Statelessness (SOS) Podcast – Episode 1 – Deepti Gurung and Neha Gurung

 

 

 

NFA in the Global Alliance to End Statelessness Taskforce

Date: September 12, 2022

NFA is proud to announce that our Executive Director, Subin Mulmi has been selected as the Taskforce member of the new Global Alliance to End Statelessness.

Through NFA’s participation in this Taskforce, we will strive to ensure that statelessness advocacy and measures to address statelessness are led by the needs and interests of stateless persons.

The Global Alliance to End Statelessness is an initiative that by 2030 seeks to accelerate solutions to statelessness through a collective multi-stakeholder approach, which centers and respects the experience of those who are stateless and formerly stateless.

For more information, please go through this page.

https://www.unhcr.org/…/the-new-global-alliance-to-end…/

 

 

Youth Training of Trainers (TOT) on Activism for Gender-Equal Nationality Rights 

Date: September 6, 8, 9, 12 and 14, 2022

NFA participated and supported to organize the Youth TOT on Activism for Gender-Equal Nationality Rights which was organized by the Institute of Statelessness and Inclusion and Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR). 16 youth activists from Nepal and Malaysia attended the five day workshop conducted on September 6, 8, 9, 12 and 14, 2022. After the workshop, the activists were asked to come up with a campaign that would be supported by GCENR.

 

 

UPR Submission – Pakistan

Date: July 14, 2022

Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI), Imkaan Welfare Organization and NFA made a joint submission to the Human Rights Council as part of the Fourth Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Pakistan on July 14, 2022. The submission highlighted five different issues related to statelessness in Pakistan – documentation and registration; child’s right to a nationality; access to rights; COVID – 19 and statelessness; gender discrimination in nationality law, and made the following recommendations:

  1. Amend section 10 of the Citizenship Act of 1951 with a view to bringing it into full compliance with article 9 CEDAW by enabling Pakistani women to transmit their nationality to a foreign spouse on an equal footing with Pakistani men.
  2. Adopt and fully implement legislative and policy frameworks to provide equal rights and protection for refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons in compliance with international norms and standards.
  3. Ensure the equal implementation of its citizenship laws with a view to extending citizenship to Bengali, Bihari, Rohingya and other stateless children.
  4. Adopt and fully implement the Draft National Policy Framework on Human Rights as a means of implementing the recommendations Pakistan received in its 2020 UPR mid-term review to (among others) ensure registration and documentation at birth of children born in Pakistan, including those within the Bengali, Bihari and Rohingya communities; ensure the regularization of legal stay of those without legal status; consider positive measures to prevent statelessness by implementing citizenship laws and policies for the inclusion of Bengali, Bihari and Rohingya communities; and ensure adopting measures to provide protection to stateless persons and those at risk of statelessness, including the right to free movement, work, health and education.
  5. Interpret Pakistan’s Jus Soli (by birth on the territory) citizenship provision in section 4 of the Pakistan Citizenship Act, in accordance with Pakistan’s international law obligations, in order to facilitate citizenship acquisition of children born on the territory to non-Pakistani parents who are not deemed to be “enemy aliens”. 
  6. Ensure that Bengali and Bihari children who are legally entitled to citizenship by birth on the territory, are not denied their right to citizenship as a result of discriminatory implementation of the law. Further ensure that all persons who have been denied access to citizenship in this manner, have their citizenship restored in an expeditious manner.
  7. Recognize and restore the citizenship of all Bengali and Bihari persons who have been forcibly registered as aliens and issued with ARCs and NARA cards, thereby in effect, depriving them of their Pakistani citizenship. 
  8. Ensure that all children – including stateless children and undocumented children – have access to education as protected under Article 25-A of the Constitution of Pakistan. 
  9. Provide training to staff of all relevant government departments to ensure that they are sensitized to the different challenges that stateless, undocumented and at risk of statelessness people face; that they are aware of their legal obligations to not discriminate and to facilitate documentation and access to rights for such people, and are provided the tools to deal with such people with empathy. 
  10. In accordance with NADRA policy, ensure the equal right of women in practice, to register the births of their children against their own CNIC without the need to provide the father’s CNIC.. 
  11. Review of administrative procedures to ensure that no one is left without a birth registration, including by taking measures to reach rural populations through mobile units. Further, ensure that everyone born in Pakistan has the access to acquiring a CRC and CNIC, on the basis of the birth registration. 
  12. Record and report accurate statistics of the stateless population in Pakistan, including Rohingyas, Afghan refugees, Ethnic Bengalis and Urdu speaking Biharis.
  13. Provide documentation to undocumented Afghans and other stateless people.
  14. Expedite facilitated citizenship for stateless groups including Afghans and Rohingyas.
  15. Ratify and fully implement the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

You can read the full document here.  UPR 42 Pakistan – FINALwebsite

 

UPR Submission – Republic of Korea

Date: July 14, 2022

Duroo – Association for Public Interest Law, GongGam Human Rights Law Foundation, Dr. Chulhyo Kim and NFA made a joint submission to the Human Rights Council as part of the Fourth Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Republic of Korea on July 14, 2022. The submission highlighted three key challenges to address statelessness in the Republic of Korea – birth registration; different forms of statelessness; and unavailability of reliable statistics, and made the following recommendations:

  1. Introduce the universal birth registration system that guarantees every child born within the jurisdiction of the ROK to be officially registered, regardless of their own or their parents’ nationality, race, religion, or legal or social status.
  2. Ensure a proper firewall in recording the birth registration of children of undocumented migrants through a neutral body, such as the National Court Administration, to prevent the Korea Immigration Service from accessing the related information.
  3. Develop and introduce a legislative statelessness determination procedure, ensuring that the procedure is fair, effective and accessible to all persons in the ROK regardless of their legal status. The procedure should comply with international standards of due process and follow the procedural safeguards outlined in UNHCR’s Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons. 
  4. Ratify and fully implement the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
  5. Develop a legislation for the implementation of the 1954 convention defining statelessness; 
  6. Take concrete steps to improve the recording of statelessness, namely by harmonizing quantitative data on stateless persons and ensuring that the statistical categories cover the entire stateless population in the ROK, including children at risk of becoming stateless. 
  7. Legalize all undocumented stateless persons and grant full access to gainful employment.
  8. Ensure the right to gainful employment and social welfare of the stateless persons in the ROK

You can read the full document here. Final_UPR Joint Submission_ROK