A/73/205 of those who belong to minorities stateless and therefore particularly vulnerable in many societies. Unless the systematic targeting of or disproportionate impact on certain minorities, resulting in their statelessness, is directly acknowledged and addressed, the predicament and challenges of the statelessness of more than 10 million individuals will not be significantly reduced. Unfortunately, this appears to be the case, notwithstanding the positive results obtained in some sectors through the important efforts of various stakeholders, 4 including the UNHCR #IBelong campaign, intended to end statelessness by 2024. 5 22. Stateless minorities are also often doubly vulnerable. The discriminatory denial or removal of citizenship may have long-lasting and extreme consequences for the enjoyment of other rights and/or access to services. In addition, women belonging to minorities may be further marginalized by gender-based discrimination in relation to their acquisition, change or retention of nationality and the conferral of nationality on their children. 23. For these reasons, the Special Rapporteur identified statelessness as a key thematic priority in his first oral statement to the General Assembly, in October 2017, and in his first report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/37/66), presented in March 2018. In that context, he convened, on 30 April and 1 May 2018 in Bangkok, a regional expert consultation so as to benefit from the knowledge and experience of academics, advocates, affected communities, United Nations bodies and agencies, regional intergovernmental institutions and civil society. He has sought to strengthen communication and collaboration with relevant United Nations bodies such as UNHCR, as well as with non-governmental organizations that are focused on addressing the challenge of statelessness, including the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, the Statelessness Network Asia Pacific, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the European Network on Statelessness, the Canadian Centre on Statelessness and the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness. In addition, a call for submissions was made on 25 April to States Members of the United Nations and other interested parties for information on issues relating to minorities and citizenship. 24. Section B below contains a preliminary analysis of the denial or deprivation of citizenship resulting in statelessness as it affects persons belonging to minorities. It is based on the invaluable information and responses provided by the individuals, organizations and States listed in the annex to the present report, to which the Special Rapporteur is extremely grateful. 25. A full thematic report on the subject will be submitted to t he Human Rights Council in March 2019. B. Contextualizing statelessness and minorities History repeats itself 26. A decade ago, in her report (A/HRC/7/23, summary), the Independent Expert on minority issues wrote on the issue of statelessness and minorities: Minorities often face discrimination and exclusion, and they struggle to gain access to their human rights, even under conditions of full and unquestioned __________________ 4 5 18-12048 One notable example is the Urdu-speaking Bihari minority in Bangladesh. Despite qualifying for citizenship under the Constitution and legislation, in practice some 300,000 Biharis were denied citizenship and faced severe discrimination in terms of employment opportunities and ac cess to education, among other things. Following litigation, the Government of Bangladesh moved towards granting citizenship to most of them after 2007. See www.unhcr.org/ibelong/. 7/19