Hon. Commissioner Selma Sassi, the Special Rapporteur on Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Internally Displaced Persons and Migrants in Africa
Equality Now commends your mandate for the excellent work done during the intersessional period in spite of the challenging operational environment.
Equality Now is a co-founder and Steering Committee Member of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR) and we have documented gender discrimination in nationality laws in Africa and the globe through our periodic “The State We’re In: Ending Sexism in Nationality Laws” Reports.
We note with concern that February 2025 marked the first anniversary of the adoption by the African Union of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa (the AU Nationality Protocol) and it still has zero signatures and zero ratifications. The lack of signature and ratification is alarming as stateless continues to be a pervasive problem across the continent. Women, children, and persons with disabilities are disproportionately affected, often facing significant barriers that prevent them from establishing or proving their nationality. Sex-discriminatory laws also leave entire families without legal identity or protection, increasing their vulnerability to human rights violations.
20 African countries namely Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Congo (Republic Of), Egypt, Eswatini, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, and Tunisia do not grant women equal rights to transmit nationality to their children and spouses on an equal basis with men. Sex-based discrimination in nationality and citizenship laws is particularly insidious as it results in dire consequences including: statelessness; fear of deportation of children and spouse and family separation; additional vulnerability of girls to child, early and forced marriage; increased vulnerability of women in abusive marriages; difficulties for women in claiming child custody/access on marriage break-up; lack of access to publicly-funded medical services and national health insurance; lack of access to social benefits; inability to register personal property and inherit family property; limited freedom of movement, including to travel abroad; limited access to jobs, economic opportunities, and financial services; and inter-generational shame, trauma and anxiety
Discriminatory laws are not only founded on stereotypes; they also reinforce stereotypical roles for both women and men. There is no justification for passing nationality only through the father/husband and not the mother/wife. Several African countries have enacted or amended laws to ensure equal nationality rights thus setting positive precedents for Member States that are yet to do so. We call on your Mandate to urge Member States to repeal and/or amend sexist nationality laws to ensure that women are to pass on their nationality and all its benefits to their children and spouses on the same basis with men. We also call upon your mandate to continue urging Member States to sign and ratify the AU Nationality Protocol. We finally call upon your mandate to support the recommendations of a webinar we convened in November 2024 to mobilize Civil Society Organizations to advocate for the signature and ratification of the AU Nationality Protocol. The recommendations include:
- Developing action plans indicating the short, medium, and long-term goals to ensure the AU NationalityProtocol is not only signed and ratified but also domesticated and implemented;
- Placing stateless persons at the center of advocacy efforts, ensuring that they drive the design of the advocacy efforts and share their lived experiences to demonstrate the impact of statelessness;
- Engaging in capacity building that incorporates counter-narratives to refute existing inaccurate and discriminatory norms or views that infringe on nationality rights; and
- Establishing a Pan African Nationality Network (PANN) to ensure joint advocacy and resource mobilization efforts.
I thank you.
Done in Nairobi on 15th April 2025