Economic impact of restrictions on women's citizenship rights: World Bank Blog By Mariam Anaïs Gnakra, Daniela Behr and Julia Braunmiller
Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - Many countries still prevent women from passing nationality to their children in the same way as men. Laws that prevent women from passing on their nationality to their children or spouse have significant economic impacts.
These provisions limit access to essential services and secure employment, undermining economic security for women and their families, and perpetuating cycles of poverty.
According to the latest Women, Business and the Law report, over a quarter of economies still restrict women's rights to confer citizenship.
Current State of Nationality Laws
The data show that 28 out of the 190 economies analysed prevent women from passing nationality to their children in the same way as men.
For example, in Kuwait and Somalia, passing nationality to a child is a right exclusive to men. Some economies, like Libya, provide legal exceptions for women married to a stateless husband to prevent childhood statelessness.
Discrimination in Spousal Citizenship
The data also reveal that 50 economies prevent women from transferring citizenship to their foreign spouses on an equal basis with men. While most nationality laws are silent on married women's ability to pass nationality to a foreign spouse, others discriminate against women directly.
For example, in Cameroon, non-citizen wives automatically acquire citizenship through marriage, but Cameroonian women who marry foreigners do not enjoy the same privilege. Their non-citizen husbands can only be naturalised after fulfilling a number of naturalisation requirements.
Similarly, in Bangladesh, foreign husbands can acquire Bangladeshi citizenship through naturalisation after having lived in the country for two years, while a foreign wife can obtain citizenship immediately upon marriage.
Regional Disparities
The highest concentration of discriminatory nationality laws is in the Middle East and North Africa region, where 85% of economies (17) do not allow women to pass nationality to their children and spouses in the same way as men, followed by South Asia (50% – 4 economies) and Sub-Saharan Africa (37.7% – 17 economies) (Figure 2).
Progress and Reforms
Yet, several countries across all regions have undertaken significant steps to align their nationality laws with international or regional commitments. In Sub-Saharan Africa, although the Protocol on the Right to a Nationality only came into effect in 2024, the discussions surrounding its adoption have sparked a wave of reform.
Since the passing of the first Resolution in 2013, Senegal, Nigeria, Madagascar, Lesotho, Malawi, Guinea, Liberia, Benin, and Cabo Verde have chronologically removed discriminatory provisions from their nationality laws. In Senegal, civil society organisations have played a pivotal role in ushering legal reforms. Women lawyers were instrumental in suppressing discriminatory provisions during the revision of the nationality code.
In Benin, the judiciary has been the catalyst for reform. In a landmark decision in 2014, the Constitutional Court struck down several provisions of the nationality code preventing Beninese women from conferring nationality to their children and foreign spouses on the same terms as men.
After a long reform process which lasted eight years, Benin finally abolished gender-discriminatory provisions in its nationality law through Law No. 2022-32 of December 20, 2022. Nevertheless, there has been a stalemate in countries like Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Togo, where nationality laws remain rooted in gender stereotypes and cultural bias despite persistent advocacy from women’s organizations.
Economic and Social Consequences
When women cannot pass citizenship, their children or spouses face obstacles in accessing inheritance, property ownership, and formal employment. Such restrictions also challenge family unity, as women in mixed-nationality marriages face barriers to accessing social services, education, and financial resources.
In some cases, when children do not have the same nationality as their mother, they risk being stateless, and basic education and healthcare can become inaccessible and unaffordable. Similarly, when a husband cannot take on his wife’s nationality, his employment opportunities are severely limited.
Removing these discriminatory provisions is thus an economic necessity to enhance women's economic opportunities, support family stability, and enable half of the society to fully contribute to national economic growth.
-0- PANA AR/MA 7March2025
