AHMR African Human Mobilty Review - Volume 8 No 3, SEP-DEC 2022 documentation challenges, it affirms women’s equal rights to identity documents. (c) Developments in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) There are no laws that are binding on all member states of the SADC that expressly address statelessness, or statelessness through the lens of gender. However, various legal and policy developments in the region have considered this issue.134 For example, the SADC legal framework does, however, include a legal instrument that addresses a cause of statelessness. The Southern African Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development (SADC Protocol) was adopted in 2008, and aims to provide for the empowerment of women, and to eliminate discrimination and achieve gender equality.135 While the SADC Protocol does not directly address the issue of statelessness, article 8(5) addresses a common cause of statelessness, namely, the absence of gender equality in the laws that govern the acquisition and transfer of nationality within the context of marriage. It obligates states parties to ensure that men and women have equal rights to either retain or change nationality upon marriage. From a policy perspective, the SADC Parliamentary Forum Plenary Assembly held its 40th Plenary Assembly Session in 2016 in Zimbabwe, on the theme of ‘Statelessness in the SADC Region’. This Forum adopted a Resolution on the Prevention of Statelessness and the Protection of Stateless Persons in the SADC Region (SADCPF Resolution on Statelessness).136 Paragraphs (iii) and (iv) of the SADCPF Resolution on Statelessness address the link between gender discrimination and the occurrence of statelessness. It calls upon states to ‘initiate legislative reforms that address any identified gaps or challenges, including any discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or gender, thereby helping to prevent statelessness’; and ‘to ensure gender equality as regards the equal right of men and women to pass on their nationality to their children and spouses, and to change or retain their nationality’.137 In another policy level statement issued in 2016, the Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa, comprising representatives from governments in the region, adopted Recommendation 2.3 in respect of the issue of statelessness.138 This statement addresses, albeit briefly, the issue of gender inequality in the laws that govern nationality within the SADC member states, affirming the need to ensure equality between men and women to pass on their nationality to their spouse and children. Thus, at both the legal and policy level in the SADC region there is recognition of the need to affirm and protect the equal nationality rights of Southern African Development Community (SADC) ‘Protocol on Gender and Development’ (2008), available at https://www.sadc.int/files/8713/5292/8364/Protocol_on_Gender_and_Development_2008.pdf, accessed on 12 May 2022. 136 SADC ‘Resolution on the Prevention of Statelessness and the Protection of Stateless Persons in the SADC Region’ (2016). 137 Ibid paras iii and iv. 138 Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa ‘Addressing mixed migration in Southern Africa: Linking protection, immigration, border management and labour migration’ (2016). 135 36