Miscellaneous
Call to amend Personal Events Registration Act
Women rights activists have called for an amendment to the Personal Events (Registration) Act to ensure that women are given the same right as their male counterparts when it comes to obtaining birth certificates of their children.Women rights activists have called for an amendment to the Personal Events (Registration) Act to ensure that women are given the same right as their male counterparts when it comes to obtaining birth certificates of their children.
They have argued that the existing Act is discriminatory as it does not allow single women and women married to foreigners the right to obtain birth certificates for their children.
Officials at the Department of Civil Registration (DoCR) also admit that there are gender-discriminatory clauses in the Act.
“The Act and other guidelines are silent on how to deal with the children of single women and of women married to foreign men. Until the Act clearly specifics how to deal with such cases, there is little we can do,” said Yubaraj Kattel, the DoCR director.
He added that the Act also denies maternal grandfathers the right to register the birth of their grandchildren.
Fathers, however, can acquire birth registration certificates for their children regardless of the country of their birth .
“The constitution states that no child born in the country shall be stateless. However, the Personal Events Registration Act has no provision for a child of a Nepali woman born to a foreign father to register his/her birth in the country. Such gender discriminations must end,” said Advocate Sabin Shrestha, executive director of Forum for Women, Law and Development.