INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 24The Ministry of Home Affairs hopes that framing of citizenship
regulations will ease the process of granting citizenship to children of Nepali mothers and non-Nepali father and children of Nepali
mothers' whose fathers remain untraced and children of citizens by birth.
Door opens to NRNs for Nepali citizenship
Citizenship-related Regulations to be tabled in Cabinet soon: DPM Shrestha
Under-secretary at the home ministry Krishna Bahadur
Katuwal said at an interaction organised by Forum for Women, Law and Development here today that in the past children of Nepali mothers and
non-Nepali fathers had difficulty obtaining naturalised citizenship as they were required to submit evidence that they had not acquired the
citizenship of their fathers' country
"Often children of Nepali mothers and non-Nepali fathers had difficulty submitting evidence (nissa) of not having acquired the citizenship
of their fathers' country," he said and added that the current regulation only required such children to sign an affidavit saying that they
had not acquired the citizenship of their fathers' country.He further said that street children and children staying in orphanage could also
easily get citizenship if the orphanage gave details of the situation wherein the children were first found
On the basis of police report and report submitted by the orphanage, such children will get Nepali citizenship.
Katuwal
said district adminis-tration offices would seek documents from orphanages on how those children seeking Nepali citizenship certificates
were found and where they belonged
Katuwal said the some procedure would have to be followed to prevent any foreign child from obtaining Nepali citizenship.With regard to the
identity of members of gender and sexual minorities in their citizenship cards, Katuwal said that although rights activists were demanding
that members of gender and sexual minorities be given their identity based on their feelings, there were some practical difficulties in
doing this because identification of individuals involved in crime could pose a legal challenge.Katuwal said although non-resident Nepalis
had demanded that they be allowed to obtain their citizenship from Nepali missions based in their country of residence,as identification of
those applicants could be possible from only the districts where they were born or their parents and grandparents were born, the new
citizenship regulations required the applicant to obtain their citizenship from the concerned district administration office
NRNs, however, will be allowed to file petition for citizenship cards from the concerned Nepali missions abroad.Advocate Binu Lama said that
framing of the new citizenship regulations would help eligible citizens, who had to wait for eight years, to obtain their citizenship.A
version of this article appears in the print on September 25, 2023, of The Himalayan Times
This article first appeared/also appeared in https://thehimalayantimes.com