UNHCR, APRIL 2023 REFUGEES FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION (in the absence of proof to the contrary) be considered to have been born within that territory of parents possessing the nationality of that state. Within the African human rights system, Article 6(3) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provides that every child has the right to acquire a nationality. Article 6(4) adopts a similar minimum protection to that provided in Article 1 of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, requiring states to provide in law that: A child shall acquire the nationality of the State in the territory of which he [sic] has been born if, at the time of the child’s birth, he is not granted nationality by any other State in accordance with its laws. All three countries considered in this study are party to the principal human rights treaties guaranteeing the right to a nationality, including the CRC and the ACRWC. Only Rwanda is a party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which establishes the minimum protections against statelessness that should be included in national laws. However, Uganda and DRC have both pledged to accede. The laws of all three countries in this study provide men and women equal rights to transmit nationality to their children, removing one of the principal causes of statelessness in countries where children of foreign fathers cannot acquire the nationality of their mothers. All three countries make explicit reference to ethnic identity or national origin in their nationality laws, including in relation to attribution of nationality to children at birth, although with different impacts in each case. (These provisions are discussed in more detail in Annex 4 on national legal frameworks.) The law of Uganda is most problematic. The Ugandan constitution of 1995 and the Citizenship and Immigration Act of 1999 attribute “citizenship by birth” to all those born in the country who are members of one of the “indigenous communities” listed in a schedule to the constitution. The only exceptions to the requirement for membership of an indigenous community in order for a child to be attributed citizenship at birth relate to those whose parents were already citizens of Uganda under the 1962 and 1967 constitutions, who retained their existing status under the 1995 constitution (recently confirmed by the Ugandan High Court in relation to qualifying Ugandans of Somali ethnicity 57). The risks of statelessness created by this legal framework are clear – including for those who are members of communities that have always been in Uganda, but are not included – and there have been proposals to amend the constitution to add new communities to the list.58 The constitutional provisions also provide that citizenship is acquired at birth by operation of law only if a parent is a citizen by birth – the child of a registered or naturalised citizen born after the parent acquired citizenship is not attributed citizenship at birth, but must apply on his or her own account. 59 The 20-year period of residence required for refugees to naturalise only begins to run once a person has attained majority, meaning that an application for the child of refugees could only be made at the age of 38. A person who could not acquire a different nationality from a parent at birth would be stateless for almost forty years before an application for the discretionary grant of Ugandan citizenship could be made, with no guarantee of success. In DRC, the constitution and the nationality code attribute “nationality of origin” to “every person belonging to the ethnic groups of which the people and the territory constituted what became Congo (currently the Democratic Republic of Congo) at independence.” 60 This provision is supplemented by 57 Abdu Abucar Hussein and 7 others v. Attorney General, Uganda High Court, Civil Suit No. 437 of 2019, Judgment of 18 March 2022. 58 See discussion in Manby, ‘Citizenship and Statelessness in the East African Community’. 59 Constitution of Uganda, 1995, as amended, art.10. 60 Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2006, Article 10 : “La nationalité congolaise est une et exclusive. Elle ne peut être détenue concurremment avec aucune autre. La nationalité congolaise est soit d’origine, soit 17