Nepal

KEY ISSUES 

• Statelessness is a significant problem in Nepal due to gender discriminatory nationality laws, a patriarchal social structure, caste-based discrimination and low birth registration rates. 
• The failure to provide a durable solution to long-term refugees and protect their children’s right to nationality means that statelessness can also be a prolonged and intergenerational problem among these communities. 
• There are no official statistics on statelessness in Nepal, but the scale of the problem is significant, likely in the hundreds of thousands. As many as 6.7 million people lack Citizenship Certificates (the document that serves as a proof of legal nationality). 
• Despite significant changes to its Citizenship Act in 2015 and 2023, Nepal remains one of 24 countries globally that discriminate against women in relation to the conferral of nationality to their children. There is also no provision to grant nationality to a child born in the territory who would otherwise be stateless. 
• Nepal is not a state party to either the 1954 or 1961 Statelessness Conventions and has no statelessness determination or protection framework in place. 

STATELESSNESS IN NEPAL 

Statelessness is a significant problem in Nepal, caused by patriarchal structures that discriminate against women and their children; discriminatory attitudes of officials that restrict access to documentation; a discriminatory, caste-based system; and the failure to provide a durable solution to long-term refugees and protect their children’s right to nationality. The country’s restrictive laws, constitutional provisions and administrative practices are rooted in the Panchayat project of a “unified national identity” (One King, One Dress, One Language), under which nationality is considered a privilege of a particular identity rather than a right of every human being. This exclusionary imagination of nationality has enabled structural prejudices to permeate Nepal’s nationality policy and practice.  

Nepalese women do not enjoy equal citizenship rights and are prevented from passing their nationality to their children or to a foreign spouse, on equal terms with men, which can cause cases of statelessness. If a Nepalese woman is married to a non-Nepalese person, her children can acquire nationality by naturalisation only, rather than by descent. The conferral of such citizenship is rare and is not accessible for many. The nationality law restrictions particularly affect women from ethnic minority groups in the Madhesh region where cross-border marriage is commonplace. Additionally, restrictive jus sanguinis nationality provisions have perpetuated statelessness across generations in the Dalit community, who have been historically landless and denied citizenship. Other groups affected by (the risk of) statelessness in Nepal include the Madheshi community whose access to citizenship certificates is restricted by what has been described as ‘chauvinistic bureaucracy’; the Lhotshampas who were stripped of their Bhutanese nationality and displaced to Nepal in the 1990s; and descendants of the Tibetans who were expelled from Tibet in the 1950s.  

Statelessness in Nepal is also perpetuated by social and economic practices that feed on the existence of deprived social groups. For example, some men exploit patriarchal nationality law provisions to avoid sharing financial or property inheritance with their wives, and in doing so, fathers would refuse to acknowledge, let alone pass on their nationality, to their children. Likewise, as stateless people are often readily exploited in low-paying jobs, merchant classes, who can have influence on law, policy and decision-makers, tend to support the status quo of statelessness based on their economic interests. 

There are no official statistics that account for the full extent of statelessness in Nepal, but the scale of the problem is significant, likely in the hundreds of thousands. At the end of 2023, UNHCR reported just 489 stateless people in Nepal, but this population is entirely comprised of stateless Rohingya refugees. UNHCR has noted that various studies estimate that a large number of individuals lack citizenship certificates in Nepal, signalling that statelessness and the risk of statelessness is a much more widespread issue in the country. The Citizenship Certificate is the document that serves as a proof of nationality and controls access to basic human rights including the right to education, work, healthcare and free movement. A study published in late 2015 by the Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD) estimated that over 4.3 million people lacked Citizenship Certificates in Nepal, projecting that the cumulative number of stateless people and people without citizenship certificates in Nepal would grow to 6.7 million by 2021 (a figure since referenced in other reports, including by Human Rights Watch in 2023).  There are also different estimates in the 2017 and 2022 US country reports on human rights practices in Nepal, where the latter report cites the same 6.7 million figure. While many undocumented people will likely be recognised as citizens should they apply, a large but unquantified number within this group, have either been denied citizenship or are likely to be at risk of statelessness.  

In the absence of a statelessness determination procedure or any specific legislative arrangements for identifying and protecting the rights of stateless people, documenting and addressing the exact implications of statelessness in Nepal is very challenging. It is widely reported that the lack of nationality documents curtails basic human rights and enables prejudices against women and children, social exclusion, exploitation, mental health problems, (risks of) suicide and forced migration. The heightened marginalisation caused by statelessness is also a factor in why the issue can be so persistent in Nepal.  

THE RIGHT TO NATIONALITY IN NEPAL 

Citizenship in Nepal is governed by the Constitution of Nepal and the Nepal Citizenship Act. Prior to 1959, these provided for access to nationality for anyone born on the territory (jus soli), but this provision was then removed. Today, under the 2015 Constitution and the 2006 Citizenship Act, access to nationality is based on descent from a Nepalese citizen (jus sanguinis), with different rules for the conferral of nationality by men and women. A child born in Nepal to a Nepali mother whose father cannot be traced, can acquire citizenship by descent. However, if it is later determined that the father is a foreigner, the child will lose their citizenship by descent and must meet the conditions to naturalise. The legal procedure requires the Nepali mother to submit a self-declaration stating that the father of the child cannot be traced and is not a foreigner. If the statement is later found to be untrue, the nationality of the child is cancelled and the applicant and the mother can be prosecuted under the charges of false statement. The law is also discriminatory in relation to conferral of nationality to a spouse. A foreign woman married to a Nepali man is allowed to acquire naturalised citizenship once she initiates the process to renounce her original nationality, but a foreign man married to a Nepali woman cannot do so. 

The 2006 Citizenship Act includes a provision under which a person found in the territory, whose father and mother are unknown, can acquire citizenship. However, street children and other foundlings who are not raised in an orphanage do not have legal means to apply for nationality and are stateless. The law does not provide for access to nationality for a child born in the territory who would otherwise be stateless. Moreover, according to civil society, access to naturalisation in Nepal is difficult: the residency requirement has increased from five to fifteen years and the ability to speak the national language is now a mandatory requirement. There is no facilitated naturalisation for stateless people. The law provides for loss of Nepalese nationality upon acquisition of a foreign nationality and for revocation of nationality acquired by fraud, but does not provide for involuntary loss or deprivation of nationality on other grounds.  

On 31 May 2023, the President signed into law the Nepal Citizenship Act (First Amendment) Bill, which amends the 2006 Citizenship Act. This should make it easier for certain people who have been stateless in the country for many years to access citizenship, potentially providing a route to nationality for up to 400,000 stateless people within the country. As per the amendment, barriers to accessing citizenship should be eased for children born to Nepali citizens by birth, children born to Nepali women whose fathers cannot be identified, as well as foundlings. In addition, the amendment removes requirements stipulating that the child of a Nepalese mother and a foreign father must be born in Nepal in order to be eligible to apply for naturalisation. This amendment to the nationality law follows a significant ruling by Nepal’s Supreme Court, issued earlier the same month, on granting Nepalese citizenship to street children. The case challenged Rule 6(3) of the Nepal Citizenship Regulation and Point 10.6 of the Citizenship Distribution Procedure Directive which stated that when granting citizenship to street children and children whose parents are unknown, this should be explicitly mentioned in the citizenship certificate. Such provisions contravened Nepal’s Constitution and were declared null and void by the Court. The Court also ordered the establishment of a procedure for granting Nepalese nationality to street children who are without guardians and to not halt the issuance of citizenship when guardians of these children refuse to provide necessary information and documentation.  

NEPAL’S INTERNATIONAL COMMITMENTS 

Nepal is not a signatory to either the 1954 or 1961 Statelessness Conventions. However, the country has acceded to the CRC, ICCPR, CEDAW, ICERD and CRPD for which it maintains no reservations against the provisions relating to nationality. For more information on regional standards and intergovernmental commitments in Asia and the Pacific, see the StatelessHub Asia and the Pacific page. 

• Click here to see what Recommendations Nepal has received through the Universal Periodic Review 
• Click here to see what Recommendations Nepal has issued through the Universal Periodic Review 
• Click here to see what voluntary pledges have been made by Nepal 

The content on this page was developed in collaboration with Nationality for All and was reviewed by Citizenship Affected People’s Network 

[Last updated September 2023] 

Cover image by Shaouraav Shreshtha