1. Discriminatory Nationality Laws
Pakistan’s jus soli provision stipulates that all children born in the territory will be citizens unless the father of the child has diplomatic immunity, or is an “enemy alien”, which is gender discriminatory as no such provisions exist stipulating the same for a child’s mother. Further, Pakistani women cannot confer citizenship to a foreign spouse on an equal basis as Pakistani men. In the situation of conferral of Pakistani citizenship from a Pakistani man to a foreign Afghan woman, the process is often lengthy and children involved in such situations often only gain citizenship if they do not have another citizenship.
2. Lack of Legal Safeguards Against Childhood Statelessness
It appears that the jus soli provision of Pakistani citizenship law would provide foundling children and children born to stateless parents access to citizenship; however, implementation of this law is less generous. Pakistan’s jus soli provisions on paper provide citizenship to all children born on the territory of Pakistan, except those whose fathers have diplomatic immunity or are enemy aliens. However, the children of Afghan refugees who have resided in Pakistan for decades have explicitly been excluded from the operation of these jus soli provisions, with the High Court of Pakistan explicitly labeling Afghan refugees as foreigners and aliens. As mentioned above, Bengali-speaking and Bihari individuals have also been registered as aliens and, as a result, denied citizenship by birth. This judicial interpretation has broadly limited the application of the jus soli provisions to exclude children born to foreigners (or ‘aliens’) in the territory.
3. Administrative Barriers
Discriminatory administrative barriers are largely the cause of statelessness among ethnic Bengali communities in Pakistan. Most ethnic Bengalis have resided in Pakistan since before the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971 yet have never had their citizenship fully recognized, despite their right to citizenship existing under the written law. It is estimated that 70–80% of the Bengali population in Pakistan do not have identity documents. The position of ethnic Bengalis was worsened through the introduction of digitized ID cards, with the government discriminating and in some cases stripping persons of citizenship by replacing previously held paper identity documents with registration documents that labeled Bengali community members as ‘aliens’.
Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas experience the lowest rates of birth registration. Lack of public awareness, complicated registration procedures, and high fees present barriers to birth registration. Children born out of wedlock and refugee and internally displaced children also experience low access to registration due to the lack of protective measures for the registration of children from such marginalized groups. Pakistan’s birth registration rate was reported as 42% in 2018.
