CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 against the people or the national liberation struggle.26 For those born after independence, all the lusophone countries adopted laws based on Portugal’s civil law system, with strong elements of jus soli. Belgium’s hasty abandonment of its central African colony in Congo without putting in place a comprehensive framework to cater for those resident on the territory, especially the large population of migrant workers forcibly imported by Belgium from the League of Nations mandate territories of RwandaUrundi, created problems that still resonate today. Independent Congo did not adopt provisions on nationality until 1964, four years after independence: the “Luluabourg Constitution” provided for nationality to be attributed to any person who was a “member of a tribe [tribu] or a part of a tribe established on the territory of Congo before 1908” (the date when the “Congo Free State” legally became a colony of the Belgian state). There was no guidance on which tribes were to be regarded as presumptively Congolese and which were not, nor on determining membership of a tribe. Those with a foreign nationality were given the right to acquire Congolese nationality by declaration within one year of entry into force of the new constitution, or within one year of majority.27 The nationality code adopted in 1965 confirmed this position, and drew on Belgian models to create a descent-based system, primarily through the father.28 Post-independence trends In general, the two dominant trends in nationality law reforms in southern Africa, as in the rest of Africa (and the rest of the world), are towards greater gender equality and towards greater tolerance of dual nationality.29 The lusophone states, with their later attainment of independence and socialist leanings, were more genderequal right from the date of independence in 1975 in respect of transmission of nationality (although in Mozambique there was initially gender discrimination in transmission to children born outside the territory and to spouses). A key turning point for the Commonwealth countries came in 1992 with the landmark decision in the Unity Dow case in Botswana, where the Court of Appeal upheld a woman’s right to pass Botswana citizenship to her spouse and children, and the law was reformed as a result.30 The decision received widespread publicity,31 and Dow’s own status as an activist ensured that the result was well-diffused among the women’s rights networks. In some cases – including Botswana itself, as well as Mauritius, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – concessions of gender equality were paired with removal of rights to acquire nationality based on birth in the territory.32 In others – again including Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – an end to gender 26 Angola: Lei de 10 de Novembro de 1975, arts. 1, 4 & 6. 27 Luluabourg Constitution 1964, art. 6. For detail, see Manby, Citizenship in Africa, chap. 7.5. 28 Décret-loi du 18 septembre 1965 portant Loi organique relative a la nationalité congolaise. 29 Manby, Citizenship in Africa, chap. 5. 30 Unity Dow, ed., The Citizenship Case: The Attorney General of the Republic of Botswana vs. Unity Dow, Court Documents, Judgements, Cases and Materials (Gaborone: Metlhaetsile Women’s Information Centre, 1995). 31 For example, Human Rights Watch, “Botswana: Second Class Citizens: Discrimination against Women under Botswana’s Citizenship Act” (New York, September 1994). 32 The amendments took place over different time periods. In Mauritius, for example, the citizenship provisions of the independence constitution of 1968 (which replaced earlier constitutions for the island) and the Citizenship Act of 1968 provided for jus soli attribution of citizenship based on birth in Mauritius (Art. 22), and for the children of Mauritian fathers to acquire citizenship at birth if born outside Mauritius. in 1995 the constitution and legislation 15 UNHCR / December, 2020