Imkaan Welfare Organisation, the Statelessness and Dignified Citizenship Coalition – Asia Pacific, Global Alliance to End Statelessness, the UN Refugee Agency, UN Women, and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights welcome the passage of the Pakistan Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2026, which again affirms the right of Pakistani citizens to confer nationality on their children without discrimination on the basis of sex. Passed by the National Assembly in March 2026, this amendment clarifies the retroactive effect of a previous amendment of the Pakistani Citizenship Act of 1951, passed in 2000. The landmark 2000 reform enshrined for the first time Pakistani women’s right to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis with men. Though this right was not universally applied to children born prior to 2000, due the amendment’s lack of clear language on its retroactive effect, Pakistani High Courts including those in Peshawar and Sindh previously affirmed the amendment should be retroactively applied.

This amendment is particularly important for applicants from vulnerable, marginalized and undocumented communities who had been previously denied the right to citizenship on the basis of their inability to produce their father’s citizenship documents. It solidifies the inherent right to citizenship of all persons born to a citizen parent and ensures that all such applicants can now access the right to ID documentation without resorting to legal intervention and the time and costs associated with that. 

We applaud these actions taken by the Pakistani National Assembly to ensure clarity on the essential issue of women’s nationality rights, which is fundamental to women’s equal citizenship, children’s rights and wellbeing, combating statelessness, and achieving inclusive sustainable development. Pakistan is  one of the over 90% of countries with a nationality law that upholds the right of women and men to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis. 

We hope this amendment will encourage policymakers in the 24 countries with nationality laws that deny women’s equal right to confer nationality on their children to advance reforms, to the benefit of society as a whole and in line with international human rights law. 

We further hope this amendment will also pave the way for additional amendments to enshrine Pakistani women’s right to confer nationality on a noncitizen spouse on an equal basis with men, thereby  ensuring  comprehensive gender equality in Pakistan’s Citizenship Act.