Stateless Transnational Migrant Children in South Africa nationality. The position under national law is what is relevant and applicable as it is based on principles of sovereignty and self-determination. Statelessness can be caused by various complex, multi-dimensional and multi-systemic factors. According to Menz (2016: 505), statelessness can be “caused by expressed or implied discriminatory nationality laws, mass displacement from conflicts, or ineffective or non-existent birth registration systems, which makes it an unfortunate by-product of citizenship gaps”. This is echoed in an earlier paper by Fokala and Chenwi (2014), analyzing the decision by the African Committee of Experts in the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) on Nubian children, in addition to conflict in and failure to implement nationality laws, and a lack of effective naturalization procedures by African countries. In as much as both publications conflict on the cause of statelessness, it should be noted that it is an indirect cause, and protracted displacement is what places a person at-risk of statelessness. Although a country has the freedom to regulate its conferring of nationality to children born in its territory, it is unfortunate that children are often excluded by the discriminatory application of laws or policies on birth registration and immigration. Manby (2016: 2) reports that dual nationality regulations can be misinterpreted and can be “used to deny a child born to one citizen parent the right to nationality in the country of their birth, even when in principle the child is eligible for that nationality.” Denationalization is when countries continuously deny recognition to certain persons within their borders or strip them of their right to citizenship despite legal reforms, personal ties to the country, economic benefits or diplomatic interventions. For example, when World War II ended, Germany stripped Jewish survivors of the Holocaust of their citizenship and recent incidents of denationalization are tied to security threats as counterterrorism responses (Pillai and Williams, 2017). The number of people who are stateless worldwide is unknown. Nahmias (2020) reports that although UNHCR has data for 3.9 million stateless people, there are millions of additional people who are stateless. The 2020 World Statelessness Report (ISI, 2020) indicates that the ISI continues to use the 15 million global statelessness estimates based on existing statistical information. The varied statistics indicate the difficulty in estimating the actual number since only few countries report these statistics – even if there are known stateless populations in their countries (Mbiyozo, 2019). According to the UNHCR (2015: 8) report, 1,021,418 people are considered to be stateless in just six African countries, and “at least 70,000 stateless children are born each year in the countries hosting the 20 largest statelessness situations.” Though South Africa is considered to have a significant number of stateless persons, the figures are unknown because they are simply not counted. This lack of acknowledgment increases the risks of marginalization and discrimination (Menz, 2016; Thompson, 2017) and protection of rights (Bhabha, 2009; Goris et al., 2009; Manby, 2011, 2016; Van Waas, 2014). Menz (2016: 505) argues that the figures provided of stateless persons are “speculative, because stateless persons are by definition outside of any legal regime 9