Kathmandu, September 20: The mass of youths gathered today at Tudhikhel for citizenship rights from the name of mother . The main objective was to pressurize government about this issue in the new constitution.
In order to eradicate this baffling issue a Campaign so called “Rising 1000s†has been initiated by Subin Mulmi the Program Coordinator at Forum for Women,Law and Development (FWLD) a campaign where thousands of people march on to recommend “Aama ko naam ma Nagrikta†Nepalese women should be given full rights to transfer citizenship to her children independently
Sapana Pradhan Malla (Lawyer)
“program is based on the issue that Youths should get citizenship from both father and mother’s name.
Not only woman but youths are also very interested and showing their enthusiasm and taking part in the event.
We have been organizing such type of program since long time. If new constitution doesn’t give authority then it won’t be justified. So the main focus is on citizenship in the name of mother.
Youth are not getting their identity because they don’t have their father and according to the law youth can’t get citizenship in the name of their mother.”
Reecha Sharma (actress)
“Feeling proud to be one of the parts of this event. I hope this event will help many youths to get citizenship.
I got information about this event from FWLD which is women based organisation.”
Sarita Neupane (participant)
“I am feeling happy to be one of the participant of this programme . Many youths are not getting citizenship. Many fathers are not capable or are not able to give citizenship to their children. So in that case mothers should have authority to give citizenship.
People do not know the importance of citizenship during their childhood but when they start getting older then they need it. But if they don’t have their father then they need this system of getting citizenship from mother. Today all the youths are here to raise their voice in this issue. Giving authority to issue citizenship from the name of mother as well will solve all problem.”
Sabin Shrestha (organizer)
“We are doing this program in order to pressurize government to include issue – citizenship in the name of mother in constitutional Assembly. Nepalese law has provision of gettin citizenship either in the name of father or the name of mother only if they have father as well. So we are here to change that and request to include giving citizenship in the name of mother single as well.
Now we are doing this event gather 1000 people. If government do not show any concern after this event also then we’ll gather 2000 3000 more people and pressurize the government.”
According to data provided by Home Ministry since year 2009 to year 2070 total of 2 crore 14 thousand 9 hundred 50 citizenships have been distributed. But according to a unanimous study 23.65% of people i.e. 43 lakh people have not got citizenship.
Children of single parent (Mother) have come across a lot of difficulties in acquiring citizenship, as the law itself restricts them from obtaining citizenship rights. Furthermore local authorities refuse to issue citizenship certificates to children of widows, victims of rape, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and in cases where father is unidentified.
The organizers said that more than 1000 participants will again pressurize government about this issue if government ignore this appeal.
