CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 earlier to a Botswanan father and a Zimbabwean mother who had abandoned the child at one year old.227 The Botswanan authorities eventually agreed to register the child. However, the litigation only assisted the particular child concerned, because the case was settled out of court and the state would not agree to a declaratory order setting out general principles. In Zimbabwe, similarly, it is reported that birth registration has been refused to single fathers, and that children left in the care of their grandparents or other relatives face challenges in getting late registration if the birth was not registered immediately after birth.228 In other contexts, the absence of a father may also create difficulties for the mother to register the birth. In Tanzania, single mothers in Zanzibar have to have to declare before a sheikh that the child was conceived out of wedlock before they can register the birth.229 Other barriers may also exist in Mozambique, for example, a legacy of the colonial era is that the civil registry office can refuse to register “African” names.230 Gender discrimination in birth registration in South Africa L.G. was born in South Africa to a South African father and an undocumented foreign mother. Home Affairs refuses to register her because her mother has no form of identification. This is in spite of the fact that her father is present, willing to register his child and has a South African ID document. The Births and Deaths Registration Act allows either parent to register a child’s birth. However, when a child is born out of wedlock, in order to register the child in the father’s surname – for example, in the case where the mother has no identity documents and thus cannot register the child in her own surname – the mother must be present and willing to sign consent to acknowledgement of paternity. But in practice, mothers are not permitted to sign such consent if they are not themselves documented. As a result, their children remain undocumented regardless of whether the father is a South African citizen. Such children are effectively in the same position as if both parents were foreigners. The Children’s Act allows fathers to obtain court orders confirming paternity in such cases, but this is not well known or advertised. Case study from: “Promoting Citizenship and Preventing Statelessness in South Africa: A Practitioner’s Guide", Lawyers for Human Rights, 2014 227 “Botswana court recognises a child’s right to a name and nationality and compels authorities to issue a birth certificate 17 years after the birth of the child”, Southern Africa Litigation Centre, 15 August 2018. 228 Daniel Nemukuyu, “Mudede Birth Row Spills Into High Court”, The Herald (Harare), 5 April 2018; “Report on The Gwanda Community Youth Development Trust Petition on Access to Primary Documents”, Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security, Zimbabwe, 27 August 2019; Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, “Access to Documentation in Zimbabwe”. 229 Zanzibar Civil Status Registration Agency Act, 2017, secs. 23(2) (b) and (c). 230 Jerónimo, “Report on Citizenship Law: Mozambique”, 3. UNHCR / December, 2020 63