The world is failing women and girls.
With just five years left to accomplish the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), not a single country is on track to meet SDG 5: achieving gender equality. Governments cite excuses such as budget constraints or political instability, but a leading cause is the injustice that remains embedded in legal systems, including sexist nationality laws that treat women as second-class citizens.
Equality Now has identified nearly 50 countries that still deny women the same rights as men to acquire, change, retain, or confer nationality. In 24 countries, women still cannot pass on their nationality to their children on an equal basis as men, while over 45 countries prevent women from conferring citizenship to their spouses on equal terms.
SDG 5 calls for an “end to all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere.” With the 2030 SDG deadline rapidly approaching, we must ask governments why women are still being denied their fundamental right to equal citizenship. Because the stark reality is that without equality between men and women in nationality laws, SDG 5 remains unattainable.
UN Member States recommit to gender equality, but words are not enough
At the 2025 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF)—the UN’s central platform for reviewing progress on the SDGs—country representatives voted on July 23 to adopt a Ministerial Declaration reaffirming commitment by UN Member States to implementing the SDGs. The Declaration acknowledged gender equality as essential to sustainable development and global peace, and recognized “the urgency of addressing existing structural barriers such as discriminatory laws and policies.”
While this renewed commitment is welcome, words are not enough. Meaningful change demands concrete action, and reform of nationality laws is one of the most practical, impactful steps countries can take.
Discriminatory nationality laws harm families and countries
Discriminatory nationality laws harm millions of women and their families. They fuel statelessness, restrict movement, and make it harder for women to obtain birth certificates for their children or claim child custody. Confronted with these prospects, women are effectively restricted in who they can marry and are also more likely to stay in abusive relationships. In some cases, girls are forced to marry to gain the security of citizenship.
Affected families face legal limbo. Adults are excluded from formal employment, which perpetuates intergenerational poverty and inequality. People without full citizenship can struggle to access public services such as healthcare and social welfare benefits, and in some countries, inheriting or registering personal property is disallowed. Children can be excluded from state schools, severely limiting future job opportunities and life chances.
Some countries still force women to adopt the nationality of their husbands when they wed. Men are not obliged to do the same. In the event of a divorce or a spouse’s death, some states strip a woman of her new nationality, rendering her, and in some cases her children, stateless.
Discriminatory laws also deny men their rights. A man who can’t take his wife’s nationality might be forced to live away from his children, or be denied the right to work.
The harms extend beyond households. Discriminatory nationality laws weaken labor markets, reduce productivity, and hinder sustainable development.
Sexism and xenophobia underpin discriminatory nationality rights
Regressive arguments against legal reform come with more than a whiff of sexism and xenophobia. Unequal nationality laws tether a woman’s legal identity to her husband or father. This curtails her autonomy, reinforces harmful gender stereotypes, and is premised upon archaic beliefs that a woman’s identity and legal rights should depend on male family members.
Politicians frequently justify not rectifying nationality laws by invoking concerns about economic or state security, claiming sex discriminatory restrictions are necessary to “protect” a country from outsiders and that granting women equal nationality rights risks undermining national identity and stability.
Evidence suggests otherwise. Citizenship encourages people to feel a part of and invested in society, while the more a country is committed to gender equality, the more peaceful and prosperous it becomes. Research demonstrates that gender-equal legal systems are a cornerstone of stronger, resilient economies.
Progress on advancing equality in nationality laws
Ending discrimination in nationality laws is a legal requirement under international law and various human rights treaties. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, states that everyone has the right to a nationality. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) specifies that women should have the same rights as men to acquire, change, or retain their nationalities and pass them on to their children, which has been extended to spouses as well.
Equality Now has been advocating with partners for an end to sexist nationality laws for over a decade. Research published in 2016 and updated in 2022 tracks almost 20 countries that have fully repealed or amended their laws.
Since then, Liberia passed amendments to their Alien and Nationality Law, ensuring women and men’s equal rights to confer nationality on their children. Benin also reformed its nationality law so there is now complete equality. And recently, Malaysia’s parliament passed an amendment to its constitution allowing women to confer their nationality to children born outside the country on the same basis as men.
Good news. But it’s not nearly enough.
Reforming nationality laws is key to SDG 5
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development promises to “leave no one behind.” Yet women and their families are being left behind by discrimination in the law that prevents them and their families from fully belonging in their own countries.
By the end of 2024, UNHCR estimated that 123 million people had been displaced from their homes because of persecution, conflict, and violence. For those who are stateless, it is harder to cross borders safely, access humanitarian aid, and rebuild their lives. All this leaves them at greater risk of exploitation and abuse.
Governments have no excuse for inaction. The tools exist now.
At the 2025 HLPF, Equality Now and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights shared practical guidelines to reform nationality laws, providing policymakers with rights-based solutions and model legal language grounded in international law, and developed in collaboration with UN experts.
The aim is clear: to guarantee that all citizens, regardless of gender, have equal access to citizenship rights. In some cases, the change needed is as straightforward as replacing the word “father” with “parent” in legal texts, an amendment that may seem minor but would transform many lives.
Countries must urgently review their nationality laws, eliminate gender-based discrimination, and recommit to full gender equality. Because without equal nationality rights, SDG 5—and the entire 2030 Agenda—will remain an empty promise.
Antonia Kirkland is the Global Lead on Legal Equality and Access to Justice at advocacy group Equality Now.
