Presentation Madame Chair, Special Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen. If the impact of statelessness on minorities has been a hidden issue, the impact of statelessness on minority women and children has been even more hidden. If we are to fully understand how and why statelessness impacts on minorities around the world and find solutions, we have to understand it as an intersectional problem. What does that mean? It means that we have to understand the multiple and intersecting disadvantages faced by the people affected. What does it mean to be a woman, a minority woman, a minority stateless woman, and why are they disproportionately affected? This is not a new concept: the international legal framework requires us to take an intersectional approach. The statelessness conventions are not the only international legal instruments setting standards and obligations relating to statelessness, and the right to a nationality.  CEDAW explicitly requires states to grant equal nationality rights to women and men.  The Convention on the Rights of the Child - almost universally ratified - enshrines the right of all children to a nationality.  CERD requires the elimination of racial discrimination in respect of the right to a nationality.  CRDP protects people with disabilities from discrimination in relation to their right to birth registration and nationality. The fact that these provisions exist in international law tells us something about structural inequality. It tells us how we need to approach the issue of statelessness and why minorities, minority women, minority women of colour, minority women of colour who are disabled, are disproportionately impacted by such a fundamental form of exclusion as statelessness.