Sabin Shrestha, the executive director of the Forum for Woman, Law and Development, says it is really an issue of male control. “They think if they give equal rights to women in terms of citizenship, then the patriarchy system will be destroyed,” she says.

Former prime minister and Assembly member Madhav Kumar believes mothers should not have the same rights as fathers.

The Interim Constitution made in 2007 clearly states that “any person whose father or mother was a citizen of Nepal at his or her birth is a Nepalese citizen.” But in practice, women in this patriarchal society still face much discrimination when passing down citizenship to their children, especially in the absence of the father or if the father is not a citizen. Overall, there are an estimated 4.3 million Nepalese living without citizenship.