The First Arab Conference on Good Practices & Regional Opportunities to Strengthen Women’s Nationality Rights: Final Declaration
Published: 2/Oct/2017
Source: League of Arab States
The first Arab Conference on Good Practices and Regional Opportunities to Strengthen Women’s Nationality Rights was held in the presence of 18 Arab countries, in collaboration with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights on 1 and 2 October 2017 at the Headquarters of the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States and in the presence of representatives of Member States, parliamentarians and representatives of civil society; and with the participation of the General Secretariat of the Arab Interior Ministers Council, the Arab Parliament, the Arab Labor Organization, Arab Women Organization, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The aim of the conference was to reaffirm the importance of documentation and the sharing and strengthening of existing efforts in the region in order to expand good practices in the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality in nationality, also to study challenges and develop frameworks for solutions based on the “Cairo Declaration for the Advancement of Women and the Arab Strategy for Women Development 2030”, and the decisions of the first Ministerial
Conference on “Women and the achievement of peace and security in the Arab region”, held by the League of Arab States and UN Women in Cairo in September 2016, and the Regional Expert Meeting “Our children… Our Future: Belonging and Legal Identity”, held by the League of Arab States in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in October 2016 in Cairo, as well as the Gulf Regional Workshop on Achieving Women’s Nationality Rights, held by the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights in Manama, Bahrain in February 2016; as well as the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the 2030 Sustainable Development Plan.
The Conference stressed the importance of building on existing efforts to promote women’s rights in the area of citizenship and to promote gender equality in the acquisition, change, retention or conferring of nationality in the region, in line with the commitments of Member States, the international human rights conventions ratified by Member States, and their national laws, thereby limiting discrimination and the risk of exploitation and the abuse of women and children.
Download declaration in English and Arabic: https://www.refworld.org/legal/resolution/las/2017/en/119481