More info at equalnationalityrights.org
An estimated 12 million people worldwide are stateless, with no country to call home. They are not recognized as nationals of the countries where they live, and as a result are denied basic human rights. For many people, this situation arises because of gender discrimination in nationality laws. This occurs when nationality legislation prevents women from acquiring, changing, retaining or passing on their nationality to their children and/or their spouses on an equal basis with men.
Being stateless has grave consequences, often leading to violations of fundamental human rights. Stateless people face many barriers and obstacles: without citizenship or identity documents they are unable to own or rent property, secure formal employment or access services such as public health care, education and social welfare benefits. Statelessness impacts individuals' ability to marry and couples' decisions to start a family.
Twenty-four countries around the world, 11 of them in the Middle East and North Africa, still have discriminatory nationality laws that make it impossible for women to transfer their nationality to their children or to their non-national spouses. It also impacts inheritance and property rights, leaving those affected unable to transfer their financial and material resources to their children.
The Women's Refugee Commission, and the Statelessness Program at Tilburg University (Netherlands) have published a report, Our Motherland, Our Country: Gender Discrimination and Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa, based on field research in Kuwait and Jordan, which still maintain gender discrimination in their nationality laws, and in Morocco and Egypt, which have enacted nationality legislation to address statelessness.