Nationality of Women

Horowhenua Chronicle, 6 September 1932, Page 8

Nationality of Women

The matter of the nationality of married women was placed before the Hon. W. Downie Stewart in Wellington recently. In view of the possibility of this matter coming forward at the Ottawa Conference, it was hoped he would express the wishes of New Zealand women. Miss Oarnochan (Dominion president of the N.C.W.) said there are 151 women's organisations within the council in the Dominion, representing between 40,000 and 50,000 women who have agreed that the present conditions of the nationality of married women are both unjust and humiliating, bringing great and undeserved distress on women who marry aliens. The same idea has been formulated by the International Council of Women, representing the women of v forty different countries and many millions of women. Under the present laws women lost their rights of citizenship to an alarming extent, and Miss Carnachan detailed some of the disabilities which came upon women through no fault of their own, but on account of most oppressive laws. Miss England (a member of the International Standing Committee of the N.C.W.) also spoke, and Mrs Suckling, president of the Wellington branch of the National Council of Women.