late registration after ten years, the fees are TZS 20,000 (USD 8.66) for applications submitted at the Headquarters, and TZS 10,000 (USD 4.33) for applications made at District offices. Many Tanzanians in rural areas do not have easy access to registration centres and some cannot afford these fees, creating obstacles to birth registration. 31. Since the enactment of the Constitutional Review Act in 2011, Tanzania has been on course to draft a new Constitution. The draft Constitution sets out important provisions that address some of the shortcomings in the national laws (see below), including providing citizenship acquisition for foundlings under seven years of age; and providing that any person who marries a Tanzanian citizen may apply for citizenship by registration. However, the draft Constitution contains no provisions to safeguard against the deprivation of nationality. Although the draft Constitution was submitted in December 2013, the referendum to adopt the Constitution was postponed, and following the election of a new president, the draft constitution is awaiting referendum. Gender Discrimination in Nationality Laws 32. Tanzania’s Citizenship Act does not afford equal rights to women and men to confer citizenship to their spouses, as a married woman cannot pass nationality to her foreign/stateless spouse on an equal basis as a married man. Section 11(1) provides that “…. a woman who is married to a citizen of the United Republic shall at any time during the life-time of the husband be entitled, upon making an application in the prescribed form, to be naturalised as a citizen of the United Republic.” Therefore, while noncitizen women are entitled to naturalisation upon marriage, noncitizen men are not. Gender inequality in nationality laws may lead to statelessness, and can threaten family unity. 33. Moreover, Section 13(3) of the Tanzania Citizenship Act states that “any woman who is a citizen by birth of who renounced her citizenship upon getting married to a citizen of another country may, where the marriage breaks down, revert to her citizenship by birth on such conditions as the minister may, by regulations published in the Gazette impose”. The law thus allows a woman who renounced her Tanzania nationality due to marriage with a man of a different nationality, to regain her citizenship if the marriage breaks down; however, it does not provide the same protection to men. 34. Furthermore, gender discriminatory provisions exist also in the TCA regarding acquisition of citizenship by descent.18 Although one can become a citizen by descent if either the father or mother is a citizen of Tanzania, this does not apply if the parent’s citizenship was solely descent-based. The TCA provides that where one’s father was a citizen by descent, the child can acquire citizenship through naturalisation. This reneges on the gender-neutral aspects of the primary provision on descent-based citizenship, since a person born outside Tanzania to a Tanzanian mother who is a citizen by descent would not be covered under this provision. Accordingly citizenship does not transmit to the second generation born outside the country, creating risks of statelessness if the child does not acquire the citizenship of the country in which they were born. 18 Ibid. N. 16. 7