STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY 8. Conclusions Extent of statelessness and profiles of those at risk It is not possible to establish the number of stateless persons in East Africa; however, it is clear that there are many hundreds of thousands of people at risk of statelessness. Statelessness is ultimately an individual situation that must be determined on the facts of each case; and it may take several years for a person to discover that he or she is in fact not considered to be a national of the state of birth and residence, after applications to different government departments for recognition, and exhaustion of appeal mechanisms. In the context where birth registration rates are low and many people remain undocumented by the state, it is difficult to propose even estimated numbers for those affected. However, it is possible to describe the profile of those most at risk of statelessness. They include the following groups: descendants of pre-independence migrants; members of border populations, including nomadic pastoralists who cross borders; children who are vulnerable in various ways (born out of wedlock, foreign fathers, orphans, separated from their parents, etc.); refugees, former refugees and internally displaced persons; and long term migrants and their children. Many of these people are only now finding out that their citizenship is in doubt, as new identity cards are being introduced, or old systems upgraded. Among those at risk of statelessness are people who are, in fact, nationals of the state where they live under the laws in force, but who cannot establish that nationality for lack of evidence or because of discriminatory application of the law. Others are not nationals under the law, but have no plausible “home” to return to: they have been in the country of residence for many decades, or were born and brought up there and have never visited the country of origin of their parents or grandparents. They only remain foreigners because the law provides no practical possibility for them to acquire nationality: that is, attribution of nationality to children is exclusively based on descent or explicitly determined by membership of ethnic group, and in addition there are no accessible procedures for acquisition of nationality. Among the existing members of the EAC, Kenya has had the most difficult challenges around managing access to citizenship; however, levels of awareness about the problem are also highest, including reports by the constitutionally established bodies examining human rights, administrative justice and anti-corruption, as well as by UNHCR and national civil society organisations. Tanzania and Uganda have similar legal and institutional traditions to Kenya, but have only recently introduced a universal requirement for adults to be registered and carry identity cards. The questions that may arise around entitlement to citizenship have mostly been obscured in these countries because they historically have only arisen when a person is threatened with expulsion as an irregular migrant, or when a person applies for a passport, and very few people have a passport. However, with the introduction of the new national identity cards, it is likely that people who believed themselves to be citizens, and others with entitlement under the law, are going to find that they are not considered to be so, but also cannot establish nationality anywhere else. Rwanda and Burundi are among the few countries in Africa where the boundaries of the modern state overlap (at least to a large extent) with cultural and linguistic boundaries and historical political units. While the risks are reduced, there are nonetheless not insignificant groups of people at risk of statelessness in both countries. The newly established state of South Sudan has many complex problems in which the self-definition of the new state is central, and thus also questions of who is entitled to South Sudanese nationality. The weakness of the state administrative systems and the crisis in government means that, as in Somalia, the number of people at risk of statelessness is increased, even for those whose theoretical entitlement to South Sudanese nationality is clear. The impact of statelessness There is a lack of systematic survey evidence of the specific impact of discrimination in access to citizenship and identity documents on the ability of individuals and groups to participate fully in the economic, social and political life of a country; but there is strong qualitative data supporting the significance of the effect. As UNHCR / September 2018 79