of unknown parents, a less restrictive provision.53 The weakest protections against statelessness in law for those born in the country are found in Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, which do not even provide rights for foundlings. Box 1: The story of Mme Diallo Mme. Diallo is Senegalese and holds a Senegalese passport. She works as an economist within a state structure and previously had her own consultancy. Mme Diallo lived and studied in Grenoble, France, from 1991 until the mid-2000s. She is the mother of two sons, both of whom were born in France, of a Congolese father to whom she was not married. She is now separated from the father, and has no further contact with him. A child born in France to foreign parents does not acquire French nationality unless he or she resides in France until the age of 16.54 While in theory the children could have travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to acquire nationality papers on the basis of their father’s nationality, their existing lack of documentation and the insecurity and administrative disarray in that country made this option unviable. Prior to a 2013 amendment to the law, Mme Diallo’s children had no right to Senegalese nationality. Article 5 of the Senegalese nationality code provided that a person was Senegalese if born in wedlock to a Senegalese father, or to a Senegalese mother and a father with no nationality or of unknown nationality; or if born out of wedlock to a Senegalese person who was the first parent with whom descent was established, or to a Senegalese person who was the second parent with whom descent was established, if the other parent was without nationality or of unknown nationality. Since none of these four situations applied to Mme. Diallo’s children, all she could do was declare the births at the Senegalese consulate in France. However, they remained with no recognised nationality. In 2001, Mme. Diallo and her sons travelled to Senegal under her Senegalese passport. The trip was intended to be a short family visit. However, when time came to return to France, her children were denied entry. Consequently, Mme Diallo was forced to leave her sons in the care of her mother in Senegal while she returned to France to complete her studies. While their French birth certificates permitted her sons to enrol in private schools in Senegal, entry to public examinations was always complicated by their lack of Senegalese documents. Only in 2013, when amendments were made to the Senegalese nationality code to remove gender discrimination, were Mme Diallo’s sons finally able to acquire Senegalese nationality and cease being stateless.55 53 The provisions are somewhat more complex than this; in the case of Ghana, for example, the provision applies to any child found in Ghana of not more than seven years of age; in the francophone countries, there are two provisions, one on new-born infants, and another on a child of unknown parents, which requires the child to have been born in the country – difficult to prove in such circumstances. UNHCR recommends that “At minimum, the safeguard for Contracting States [to the 1961 Convention] to grant nationality to foundlings is to apply to all young children who are not yet able to communicate accurately information pertaining to the identity of their parents or their place of birth”: Guidelines on Statelessness No. 4: Ensuring Every Child's Right to Acquire a Nationality through Articles 1-4 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, HCR/GS/12/04, 21 December 2012, paragraph 58. 54 Art. 21-7 of the French Civil Code. 55 Interview conducted by Kavita Brahmbhatt, UNHCR, June 2014. 19