Acquisition of nationality through naturalization entitled to “a Kenyan passport and any document of registration or identification issued by the State to citizens”.95 The Constitution provides for gender equality in the conferral of nationality: for the first time, women could confer their Kenyan nationality to children and spouses on an equal basis as men. KENYA CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION ACT, 2011 The new Constitution led to the enactment of the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act 2011 (‘the 2011 Act’96). For the first time, a definition of a stateless person was included in Kenyan law.97 The 2011 Act contains some safeguards against statelessness, including presumption of citizenship for foundlings below the age of 8 years old, found in Kenya, entitlement to dual nationality in some circumstances, and restrictions on the withdrawal of citizenship. Citizens are expressly entitled to any document of registration or identification issued by the State to citizens, including a passport and a Kenyan ID card.98 The 2011 Act provides for special temporary procedures to allow people resident in Kenya since 1963 and their descendants to register as citizens. With respect to citizenship by registration, the 2011 Act makes provision for three categories of individuals without Kenyan nationality: stateless persons99, migrants100, and descendants of either stateless persons or migrants101. These three legal categories provide for persons living in Kenya for a continuous period since 12 December 1963 to be deemed lawful residents and to be eligible on application to be registered as citizens.102 While the 2011 Act drew a distinction between “stateless persons” (described as those without “an enforceable claim to the citizenship of any recognized state”) and “migrants” (those “who voluntarily migrated into Kenya before 12 December 1963”), there is no real 95 Constitution of Kenya 2010, Article 12(1)(b). 96 Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act of 2011. Note that Section 17 was amended in 2012; Sections 15 and 16 were amended in 2017. 97 Section 15 of the 2011 Act, which sets out the definition of a stateless persons adds a temporal condition that the person must have been in the country since independence. Therefore, the definition in the 2011 Act is at variance with international legal definition of a stateless person as found in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention and in customary international law. 98 Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act of 2011, Section 22(g). 99 Ibid, Section 15. 100 Ibid, Section 16. 101 Ibid, Section 17. 102 UNHCR, Statelessness and Citizenship in the East African Community, September 2018, page 19, available at: https://www. refworld.org/docid/5bee966d4.html 68 U N H C R > G P P A C T I O N 1 : R E S O LV I N G E X I S T I N G M A J O R S I T U AT I O N S O F S TAT E L E S S N E S S