BACKGROUND NOTE ON GENDER EQUALITY, NATIONALITY LAWS AND STATELESSNESS 2018 States with constitutional guarantees of equality that have not yet reformed nationality laws to introduce gender equality Four African States – Burundi, Liberia, Sudan, and Togo – have enshrined the principle of gender equality in recent constitutions but have yet to reform the relevant provisions of their nationality laws. In principle, constitutional provisions prevail over the nationality law in each State. However, because nationality laws tend to be more specific and practiceoriented, administrative authorities may be more likely to apply the older provisions of these laws rather than look to constitutional guarantees of gender equality. For example, in Burundi, the 2000 Nationality Code does not allow mothers to transfer nationality to children except when maternal filiation is established when they are born out of wedlock to unknown fathers or if disowned by their fathers. This is at variance with Article 12 of Burundi’s 2005 Constitution, which guarantees Burundian men and women equality in nationality matters. In Liberia, the Aliens and Nationality Law of 1973 allows children born in Liberia to acquire Liberian citizenship at birth. Children born abroad to Liberian mothers, however, are excluded from acquiring Liberian citizenship. These provisions are inconsistent with Article 28 of the Liberian Constitution of 1986, which establishes that any child who has a parent who was a Liberian citizen at the time of birth acquires citizenship, provided that the person renounces any other nationality upon attaining majority. During the December 2011 ministerial meeting Liberia pledged to amend the relevant provisions of the Aliens and Nationality Law to bring them into line with the Constitution. In Togo, while the 1978 Nationality Law contains a safeguard to grant citizenship to children born in its territory who cannot claim the nationality of another State, it only allows mothers to confer their nationality on their children if the father is stateless or of unknown nationality, contrary to Article 32 of the 1992 Constitution, which grants Togolese nationality to children born to Togolese fathers or mothers. In Sudan, the 1994 Nationality Act provides that all children born in Sudan whose male ancestors were residing in Sudan since 1956 acquire Sudanese nationality by descent. After 1994, the Act grants citizenship to children born to a father who was a Sudanese national by descent. The law was amended in 2005 to allow a child born to a Sudanese mother to acquire Sudanese nationality by birth by following an application process. These provisions from the 1994 Act are at variance with Article 7 of the Interim Sudanese Constitution that guarantees that “every person born to a Sudanese mother or father shall UNHCR | 8 March 2018 9