CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y Foundlings, children born out of wedlock, orphans and children separated from their parents, and other vulnerable children While all the territories considered for this report include protections in their laws to attribute nationality to foundlings (children of unknown parents), these provisions are only as effective as the procedures to implement them in practice. In Djibouti the civil code and the law on the legal protection of minors give the courts general jurisdiction over nationality and birth registration, and a system exists to establish late birth registration and recognise the Djiboutian nationality of very young children whose parents are unknown, but not for older children (See above, under heading on birth registration). In Somaliland, it is reported that a court can give children new identities, including paperwork that enables them to attend school and apply for government documents?°?; but no such system exists in Somalia — or in Ethiopia or Eritrea. In Ethiopia, the Family Code of 2000 gives general powers to the courts in relation to the protection of minors, which could perhaps be adapted to this purpose, as the civil registry and national identity systems are strengthened.2° In a society where nationality, naming and (social) identity is derived from the father, children born out of wedlock face particular difficulties in asserting their legal identity, even if both parents are known. In the Somali clan-based system, for example, children born out of wedlock cannot claim their father’s lineage, leaving their status ambiguous.2°* who often face significant stigma, minority communities Perhaps most at risk of exclusion are children of sex workers, especially those who “look foreign’. have been taken as brides by members In Somalia, many girls from of the Islamist militia Al Shabaab, who have then abandoned the family or been killed. It is not certain that either family will recognise the children born from such relationships, leaving them at risk of multiple forms of exclusion, including statelessness. There are many street children across the region who are separated from their families, many of whom have no proof (or even knowledge) of their origins, and live with no papers of any kind. In Djibouti city, around 450 such children had accessed services operated by Caritas in 2015, the only centre providing such assistance at that time.2°° In 2010, a government-supported survey estimated that 12,000 children lived on the street in Addis Ababa2°®; others have proposed that the number may be several times that figure.29” In Somalia, the conflict has created many orphans, and separated other children from their biological parents; although many are cared for within wider kinship networks, others are surviving on 202 Rader, ‘Verification and Legibility in Somaliland’s Identity Architecture’, 73. 203 Proclamation No. 213/2000. 204 Rader, ‘Verification and Legibility in Somaliland’s Identity Architecture’, 72. 205 Chiara Brunelli, “Une enfance passée dans Ia rue a Djibouti”, Caritas Italie au Djibouti, 22 June 2015 https://www.caritas.org/2015/06/une-enfance-passeedans-la-rue-a-djibouti/?lang=fr 206 UNICEF, Ethiopia Country Programme Document 2012-2015, p.4, citing “Head Count of Street Children in Addis Ababa”, Addis Ababa Bureau of Children and Women’s Affairs and Street Invest International, 2010, https://sites.unicef.org/about/execboard/files/Ethiopia_final_approved_2012-2015 20 Oct_2011.pdf 207 Mulualem Merga et al., ‘Challenges in Decision Making Among Homeless Pregnant Teens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: A Descriptive Phenomenological Study’, Journal of Pregnancy and Child Health 02, no. 02 (2015), https://doi.org/10.4172/2376-127X.1000140. See also Tom Gardner, “Homeless children struggle to survive on the streets of Ethiopia's capital”, The Guardian (London), 7 January 2019 https://www.thequardian.com/globaldevelopment/2019/jan/07/homeless-children-struggle-to-survive-on-streets-of-ethiopia-capital-addis-ababa. UNHCR — December 2021 49