CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 Amongst the largest migration movements in recent years in Southern Africa has been of Zimbabweans into neighbouring countries, with perhaps one million emigrants, moving especially to South Africa.393 While perhaps most of these individuals did not formally seek asylum, some were granted refugee status. Among the emigrants were many whose Zimbabwean citizenship had been denied and who were therefore at high risk of statelessness, or in fact stateless (if unable to confirm nationality of another country). In South Africa, the authorities responded to the situation by adopting a twelve-month “special dispensation permit” for Zimbabweans on the basis of the 2002 Immigration Act, granting the right to legally live and work in the country (later extended several times, and in 2017 transformed into “Zimbabwean exemption permits”).394 However, in 2018, only just over 180,000 people were reported to have applied for the new exemption permits after one year in operation, a small minority of the total number of Zimbabweans estimated to be in South Africa, likely leaving many still undocumented.395 In Botswana, a group of several hundred Zimbabweans were granted refugee status, after fleeing violence associated with the 2008 elections. In 2017 UNHCR agreed with the governments of Zimbabwe and Botswana that it was safe for them to return; but some resisted this decision, leaving them without status in Botswana.396 In Mozambique, UNHCR identified hundreds of individuals who were mainly returnees from Zimbabwe and who did not have recognition of either Mozambican or Zimbabwean citizenship.397 These persons have difficulties in accessing basic services and are also reported sometimes to be victims of harassment by authorities, especially the police, due to their lack of documentation. 398 Malawi was willing to restore citizenship if evidence was available, but the process was expensive and difficult to access; an unknown number of diaspora ���returnees’ did not have any citizenship documents.399 The children of the Zimbabwean diaspora without Zimbabwean identity documents are at high risk of statelessness, because their parents lack the documents needed to access birth registration either in the country of birth or in Zimbabwe. Even if the Zimbabwean citizenship of a parent is later confirmed, the children born outside the country will, in the absence of such documentation, need assistance to establish their own right to citizenship. 393 IOM, “World Migration Report 2020”. 394 Tara Polzer, “Regularising Zimbabwean Migration to South Africa”, Migration Policy Brief (Johannesburg: Forced Migration Studies Program University of the Witwatersrand and Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa, May 2009); Inocent Moyo, “Zimbabwean Dispensation, Special and Exemption Permits in South Africa: On Humanitarian Logic, Depoliticisation and Invisibilisation of Migrants”, Journal of Asian and African Studies 53, no. 8 (2018): 1141–57, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909618776413. 395 “Home Affairs on Zimbabwean exemption permits, South African Department of Home Affairs”, 15 https://www.gov.za/speeches/media-statement-extension-closing-date-fordispatching-zimbabwean-exemption-permits-zep-15. 396 “Zimbabwe Refugees Lose Fight to Remain in Botswana”, Voice of America, 6 February 2020 397 “Mozambique: UNHCR to Support Registration of Stateless People”, UNHCR, 5 October 2011. November 2018 398 UNHCR, “Fighting Statelessness: Findings In Mozambique”, 2011. A pilot project in South Africa is already under way, with other exercises planned in Zimbabwe and Malawi. 399 According to information provided at a UNHCR regional statelessness meeting, 1-3 November 2011, Malawi restored citizenship to 85 persons during the period 2008 to 2011. UNHCR / December, 2020 93