Widespread coverage of protests in favour of citizenship in the name of mothers seems to have had an impact on public opinion.
Widespread coverage of protests in favour of citizenship in the name of mothers seems to have had an impact on public opinion. More than half of all respondents (55.7%) in the nationwide Himalmedia Poll considered the clause in the draft discriminatory. Equal numbers of men and women said citizenship should be issued either through father or mother's name. Percentage of respondents supporting this clause is higher in the mountains than in the hills and the Tarai. Only 27.1% respondents said father and mother should be Nepali citizens for their children to get Nepali citizenship. When the Himalmedia survey was underway, citizenship provisions in the draft that activists labeled 'regressive' had not yet been revised.
On 8 August, the four political parties inked a fresh deal to revise citizenship provisions. The provisions say either father or mother should be Nepali citizen for their children to get Nepali citizenship. But rights groups are still not satisfied and say the revised version has many loopholes.
A child born to a Nepali mother and foreigner father can get Nepali citizenship by descent but their father should have acquired naturalised citizenship. If a foreigner father married to Nepali mother does not forego his original citizenship and does not possess Nepali naturalised citizenship, their children can claim just naturalised citizenship. But even for that, he has to produce evidence that he has not acquired citizenship of the country where his father is from.
Read also:
Himalmedia Nationwide Public Opinion Survey 2015, Ayesha Shakya
Himalmedia Public Opinion Survey 2015