AHMR African Human Mobilty Review - Volume 8 No 3, SEP-DEC 2022 both from direct and indirect gender discrimination, as well as some of the key consequences of statelessness for women. The third section provides a critical gender analysis of the relevant international legal frameworks on statelessness, highlighting concerns about inadequate gender responsiveness in the existing instruments. However, analysis of the relevant international human rights legal and policy frameworks — binding in the Southern African region — demonstrates a comprehensive foundation for women’s nationality rights and gender equality. The fourth section addresses relevant regional and sub-regional laws, policy developments, and jurisprudence. While not exhaustive, the analysis in this section indicates that there is growing attention to gender discrimination in statelessness law and policy in Southern Africa, and notable progress in some areas, such as the reform of gender discriminatory nationality laws. However, there remain ongoing challenges in bridging the statelessness gender gap that results in compounded vulnerabilities and consequences for women. II. GENDERED CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF STATELESSNESS (a) Conceptualising statelessness To clarify and frame the key concepts used in this article, the section begins with a brief discussion on conceptualising statelessness. Under international law, as per the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention), a stateless person is defined as someone ‘who is not considered as a national by any State under operation of its law’.14 This definition has historically been understood as limited to cases of statelessness de jure (in law), which occurs due to various reasons, including by operation of the nationality laws of a country, or due to state succession and changes to national borders.15 However, critiques in the literature have pointed to the shortcomings of this legally formalistic definition, proposing that the real test should be one of ‘effective nationality’, that is, whether there is effective national protection of an individual’s nationality rights.16 Thus, the term ‘de facto (in practice) statelessness’ developed, pointing to the many ways in which people are not able to exercise their nationality rights in practice, for example, due to displacement from conflict or instability or migration, lack of birth registration, bureaucratic and administrative difficulties in obtaining identification documents, or as a consequence of human trafficking.17 As discussed below, women are often more likely to face particular vulnerabilities to de facto statelessness owing to indirect gender discrimination. However, as van Waas and de Chickera note, absent a binding definition under international law, the meaning of the concept of de facto statelessness has long Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons 1954, 360 UNTS 117 art 1(1). Weissbrodt & Collins op cit note 5 at 251. Carol A. Batchelor ‘Stateless persons: Some gaps in international protection’ (1996) 7(2) International Journal of Refugee Law 232 at 233. 17 Ibid. 14 15 16 20