have not obtained personal documents (i.e. birth, marriage or death certificates, personal identification cards and travel documents), a task that is particularly difficult to carry out if their documents were confiscated prior to expulsion. Consequently, of the 24,000 returnees, only around 8,000 have obtained official documents identifying them as Mauritanians; the others continue to face great difficulties in accessing State services like education and health care and in registering to vote, and are excluded from national censuses. Without identity documents, many repatriated persons are at risk of becoming stateless."12 National Law 19. Mauritanian nationality law is set out in Loi N° 1961-112 portant code de la nationalité mauritanienne (the "1961 Law")13as amended by Loi No 2010 - 023 (the "2010 Amendment").14 20. The 2010 Amendment removed a previously existing right to Mauritanian nationality based on birth in Mauritania (contained in Article 9 of the 1961 Law) to create a purely descent-based regime (with the exception of abandoned babies). Further, the 2010 Amendment retained discriminatory provisions which deny mothers the ability to confer nationality upon their children on an equal basis as Mauritanian fathers. The principal provision of this regime is Article 8 of the 1961 Law, which confers citizenship to: • "A child born to a Mauritanian father" (Article 8(1)); • "A child born to a Mauritanian mother, provided that the father is without nationality, or of unknown nationality" (Article 8(2)); and • "A child born in Mauritania to a Mauritanian mother and a father of foreign nationality, provided that the child repudiates this nationality before reaching majority [the age of 18]" (Article 8(3)). 15 21. The 2010 Amendment also addressed the situation of children born abroad to a Mauritanian mother and foreign father, which had been a gap previously. According to Article 13 which was introduced in 2010, such children can only opt for Mauritanian nationality in the year preceding their majority.16 22. The law presumes that at least one parent will have Mauritanian citizenship, or that the child has been abandoned. It therefore does not address the situation of children born to two stateless parents or a stateless and foreign parent, or to parents who cannot confer their citizenship to their child. This gap, can cause intergenerational statelessness, with no legal avenue to secure the right to nationality of such children.17 23. While the lack of birth registration and statelessness are not synonymous, birth registration and obtaining a birth certificate is often the first step in acquiring a nationality. A birth certificate proves facts relating to place of birth and parentage. Article 58 of the 2010 Amendment removed the possibility for late registration of birth and other civil status events, creating risks of statelessness.18 12 https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/34/54/Add.1 , p. 8. https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b5304.html. 14 http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Mauritania_2010.pdf. 15 The quotations above have been translated using google translate. 16 https://www.refworld.org/country,,,,MRT,,4ffafe792,0.html. 17 https://uprdoc.ohchr.org/uprweb/downloadfile.aspx?filename=2173&file=EnglishTranslation. 18 https://minorityrights.org/minorities/black-africans/>. 13 5