not explicitly exclude Roma women and children from citizenship, they often bear the disproportionate impact of administrative barriers, discrimination and lack of access to justice. Consequently, Roma women face barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare because of documentation problems, as well as barriers to registering their children’s births, thus the risk of statelessness being passed on to the next generation. Inequality and lack of documentation also contribute to patterns of violence and exploitation, hinder the access to legal aid to remedy those violations. Nina Murray emphasized the primary responsibility of states in addressing the issue of statelessness, in particular affecting minority women and children engaging with those affected in order to address the issue in a comprehensive manner. She also emphasized the need to address the problem of childhood statelessness in refugee communities in Europe, Ms. Noro Rawaozanany, Focus Development Association, discussed the example of her own country, Madagascar, in addressing the issue of statelessness affecting minorities. She emphasized the importance of addressing intersectional discrimination in the context of preventing statelessness affecting women and children. She referred to the positive legal reform of 2016 of Madagascar, which allowed women to transmit their nationality to their children on an equal basis with men. She noted that since entry into force, the new legislation reduced statelessness in Madagascar significantly and people, who obtained nationality, finally had access to many human rights and freedoms. Noro Rawaozanany highlighted the importance of addressing gender discrimination and to provide women and men equal right to confer their nationality upon their children and spouses. She also highlighted the importance of reforming laws and policies that may discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity, in particular against children whose parents are unknown. She noted the importance of facilitation of naturalization process, as well as having a principled human rights approach to the issue of statelessness. She further stressed the need to ratify the international instruments addressing the issue of statelessness and to raise awareness about the issue at the global level. In conclusion, she mentioned that there is a need to be proactive in addressing the challenges of statelessness with the view of combating the phenomenon. Mr. Benyam Dawit Mezmur, Committee on the Rights of the Child, reaffirmed that statelessness is a minority issue, as well as a child’s rights issue, since statelessness disproportionately affects children. He mentioned that there are numerous negative consequences of statelessness for children, but one thing to be singled out was that it has lifelong and negative intergenerational impact. He further noted that the violation of the rights of the child being affected by statelessness starts before the child is born. Benyam Mezmur highlighted these points as violations of the Convention, indicating that throughout the past 25 years statelessness was addressed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Benyam Mezmur highlighted the need to ratify the international and regional human rights instruments on statelessness and on the rights of the child, as well as the need for states to withdraw their reservations to Article 7 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, as well as their reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. He emphasized the need of eliminating discriminatory laws in the area, as well as the necessity of having disaggregated data on statelessness in the countries. He stressed that granting nationality should be an expedited process, since it’s absolutely critical and time is often of essence. Benyam Mezmur concluded his presentation with positive examples of states taking measures to protect stateless minority children, by, inter alia, enacting legislation ensuring 12