RESOLUTION ON THE PREVENTION OF STATELESSNESS AND THE
PROTECTION OF STATELESS PERSONS IN THE SADC REGION
(SADCPF40-Res 001/16)
The SADC Parliamentary Forum,
a) RECALLING the theme for this 40th SADC Plenary Assembly Session on
“Statelessness in the SADC Region” and the deliberations thereof by
Parliamentarians during the Deliberative Session;
b) FURTHER RECALLING ongoing efforts of the African Union to move
towards the adoption of Draft “Protocol to the African Charter on Human
and Peoples’ Rights on the Right to Nationality and the Eradication of
Statelessness in Africa”;
c) TAKING NOTE of the Conclusions and Recommendations on
statelessness adopted by the SADC “Technical Migration Dialogue for
Southern Africa Addressing Mixed Migration in Southern Africa: Linking
Protection, Immigration, Border Management and Labour Migration,
Gaborone, Botswana: 16 – 18 August 2016”;
d) ACKNOWLEDGING the Conclusions of the “Conference on Ensuring
Everyone’s Right to Nationality: The Role of Parliaments in Preventing and
Ending Statelessness, Co-organized by the Parliament of South Africa, the
Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, 26 to 27 November 2015”;
e) RECOGNISING the requirement by the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDG) endorsed by the UN General Assembly on 25 September 2015, in
particular SDG target 16.9 to provide by 2030 legal identity for all,
including birth registration;
f)
FURTHER RECOGNISING The numerous formal pledges of SADC Member
States to accede to the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of
Stateless Persons and the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of
Statelessness, and the Recommendations from the Human Rights
Council’s Universal Periodic Review to the same effect;
The SADC Parliamentary Forum:
Calls upon National Parliaments and Governments in the SADC Region to:
i)
Resolve any existing situations of statelessness within our own countries;
ii) Review the legislative frameworks and administrative practices in
nationality matters with a view to ensure their consistency with
international standards on the prevention and resolution of
statelessness, as well as on protection of stateless persons;
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