STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY access finance for their own businesses (many are self-employed carpenters). They approached the Minister for Immigration and Registration of Persons in 2009 in the hope that their situation could be regularised, submitting lists of names of those affected. They were not provided a route to obtain Kenyan citizenship, although in principle they would have been eligible to naturalise. The Zimbabwean High Commission in Kenya has also refused applications by the second-generation descendants of the original migrants for Zimbabwean papers: under Southern Rhodesian and then Zimbabwean law citizenship did not transmit to the second generation born outside of the country.195 In any event, those living in Kenya no longer have active connections in Zimbabwe, nor have they ever visited that country: without documents they are unable to travel outside of Kenya. Although the harassment that they faced during the period of President Moi has ceased, they still face risk of arrest if they leave their neighbourhood, despite their perfect Swahili and Kikuyu language skills.196 Rwandans, Burundians and others Scattered around Kenya there are smaller communities originating from other African countries that have struggled to obtain recognition of Kenyan citizenship despite very long residence and births in the country. Among them are people of Rwandan, Burundian, and Congolese descent. Following the successful campaign for the recognition of the Makonde, representatives of these groups also brought their situation to the media. In February 2017, descendants of an estimated 500 people who were brought from Rwanda to Kenya by the British colonial administration during the 1940s to work in tea plantations in Kericho raised their own claim to Kenyan citizenship with the Rwandan High Commissioner to Kenya.197 South Asians: Children of British Overseas Citizens and others A small group of people at risk of statelessness are children born in Kenya whose parents are British overseas citizens (BOCs). The status of BOC was created by a major restructuring of British nationality law enacted in 1981.198 It is a residual category with limited rights in the UK for people with a connection to a territory of the former British Empire who did not acquire the status of British citizen (with full rights in the UK) under the same legislation. It was estimated that around 1.5 million people were eligible to be BOCs in 1981. In East Africa, this category applied particularly to people of Asian origin resident in Kenya in 1963 who had been citizens of the UK and colonies (a category abolished in 1981) and who had not acquired Kenyan citizenship by registration during the two year period permitted after independence. The status of BOC is a closed category: a child does not inherit BOC status from a parent, although in very limited circumstances there may be a right for the child to register as a BOC and subsequently as a British citizen, if that person can prove that they hold no other citizenship. Few have done so—probably under 5,000 globally.199 The Kenyan High Court confirmed in 2014, in the case of Kulraj Singh Bhangra, that the child of Kenyan Asian parents who acquired Kenyan citizenship after his birth, but while he was still a minor, did not acquire Kenyan citizenship because of their naturalisation; however, it ordered the Kenyan government to deal expeditiously 195 Although this restriction was removed with the adoption of the 2013 Constitution, transmission of citizenship is still subject to registration of the birth of a child with the Zimbabwean authorities: Constitution of Zimbabwe, 2013, Article 37. The Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act (Cap. 4:01, No. 23 of 1984) was last amended in 2003, and has yet to reflect these changes, still providing for transmission of citizenship by descent to be limited to the first generation born outside the country (Section 6). 196 Interviews, Kiambaa, June 2016. See also Joseph Ngunjiri, “Nowhere to call home in promised land”, The Nation (Nairobi), 13 June 2009; “After 50 years, stateless Shona still trapped in Kenya’s shadows”, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 29 May 2015. 197 “Makonde celebrate citizenship while other stateless people cry foul”, Kenya News Agency, 3 February 2017; David Ohito, “Rwandans who have lived in Kenya for 70 years appeal for naturalisation”, The Standard (Nairobi), 16 February 2017. 198 British Nationality Act, 1981 (entry into force 1983). 199 British nationality rules are notoriously complex, and this is a simplification. See Fransman’s British Nationality Law, section 11.1.3, and Immigration Law Practitioners Association, Submission to Lord Goldsmith for the Citizenship Review: The Different Categories of British Nationality, 21 December 2007. The refusal to offer East African Asians full rights as British citizens was litigated before the European Commission of Human Rights: for an account of this case, see Anthony Lester, “Thirty Years On: The East African Case revisited”, Public Law (2002), Spring Issue, pp. 52-72. 50 UNHCR / September 2018