14. According to the 1966 Citizenship Act, Malawian men have the right to confer nationality on non-national spouses, while women are denied this same right under Part IV of the Citizenship Act: Part IV Citizenship by registration and naturalisation, Section 16 Registration of wives of Malawi citizens (1) Subject to subsection (2), any woman, being a person of full capacity, who has been married to a citizen of Malawi or to a person who would but for his death have become a citizen of Malawi on 6th July, 1966, may be registered as a citizen of Malawi, notwithstanding that she is an alien, on making application therefor to the Minister in the manner prescribed by section 28, if she satisfies the Minister that she fulfils all the requirements specified in section 13 (1) (a), (b), (c) and (d). (2) A woman shall not be registered as a citizen of Malawi under this section unless at the time of application she makes a declaration in writing— (a) of her willingness to take an oath of allegiance in the form specified in the Second Schedule; and (b) of her willigness to renounce any other nationality or citizenship she may possess; and or citizenship she may possess; and (c) in the case of a woman who is widowed, divorced or separated from her husband, of her intention to continue to reside permanently in Malawi. 15. In 2018, Parliament passed a bill to allows for dual citizenship. While previously, Malawian women who acquired another nationality through marriage to a foreigner would lose their Malawian nationality, the bill passed in Parliament allows women who marry a foreigner to retain their Malawian citizenship, while also not barring them from obtaining the nationality of their spouse. 16. Although Malawi has not yet acceded to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the Malawian Ministry of Home Affairs & International Security co-hosted a national roundtable in July 2018, and reportedly agreed to work towards accession.4 Gender discrimination 17. Under Malawian law, women and men can confer nationality to children on an equal basis. However, women cannot confer nationality to spouses on an equal basis with men.5 18. However, there have been some legislative developments related to this discrimination, as well as other legislative developments related to addressing gender discrimination in other spheres. Collectively, this contributes to an environment where there are both 4 5 https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bb214c54.html. https://equalnationalityrights.org/countries/sub-saharan-africa. 4