In 1989, Mauritania’s Arab-dominated government revoked the citizenship of an estimated 75,000 black Mauritanians. Many have been stranded in refugee camps ever since.
In 1989, Mauritania’s Arab-dominated government revoked the citizenship of an estimated 75,000 black Mauritanians. The police and army confiscated and destroyed their identification papers and deported most of them into neighboring Senegal and Mali. Many have been stranded in refugee camps ever since.
Many of those deported were black civil servants, prosperous merchants, and land owners, so the government found itself with a windfall of vacant jobs and unprotected assets to distribute to Arabic-speaking loyalists.
The government had reconsidered the expulsions by 1994. About half of the exiles had returned by 1997; however, many subsequently left again because they could not regain recognition of their nationality and get their lands back. In 2000, the African Commission ruled that Mauritania had breached the African Charter when it undertook the deportations.
This ruling and the installation of a new government in Mauritania in 2007 presented an opportunity to press for the return of the rest of the black deportees lingering in refugee camps. In January 2008, under United Nations auspices, a return began, and 4,760 people found their way back into Mauritania.
The challenges of the return are numerous. Many black Mauritanians returned only to find other people occupying and farming their land. Finding work is especially difficult since many black Mauritanians no longer have their official identification card.
The Open Society Justice Initiative continues to press for the return of the thousands of Mauritanians who remain in exile, still waiting to make their way back home.
Struggles for Citizenship in Africa
Written by Bronwen Manby of the Open Society Foundations, this book documents the dire consequences of pervasive citizenship discrimination across the continent.
Citizenship Law in Africa
Statelessness and discriminatory citizenship practices underlie and exacerbate tensions in many regions of Africa, according to this report released by the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project.
Despite numerous attempts to eradicate statelessness, the problem persists. This timeline shows selected efforts to resolve the problem, as well as a handful of historical examples that illustrate the enduring nature of statelessness.
1920Following the end of World War I, the League of Nations is created to preserve peace. Throughout its existence, the League’s Court of International Justice will take up several disputes between countries relating to citizenship.
1922The League of Nations issues Nansen passports, internationally recognized identity cards for stateless refugees, partially as a response to the Russian Revolution.
1930The League of Nations adopts The Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Law which states: “it is in the general interest of the international community to secure that all its members should recognise that every person should have a nationality.”
1935The Nuremberg Laws in Germany strip Jews of their citizenship paving the way to the Holocaust.
1945The United Nations is created following the end of World War II.
1947The partition between India and Pakistan leaves thousands stateless—a problem still unresolved for many to this day.
1948The UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article asserts that “Everyone has a right to a nationality” and that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.”
1948Burma gains independence from the British. Successive Burmese regimes refuse to provide the Rohingya Muslim minority with full citizenship rights.
1948Palestinians displaced as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict constitute what is today the world’s largest refugee population (4.6m registered with UNRWA); amongst them hundreds of thousands remain stateless and vulnerable with no or limited status in their host countries.
1952–1960British colonists recruit Nubians from Sudan to fight in an anti-colonial rebellion in Kenya. Thousands of Nubians that are left behind remain to this day in Nairobi’s slums denied citizenship.
1954The UN adopts the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. The convention provides legal status for someone who is not considered a national under the laws of any state and remains the primary international instrument with the goal of regulating and improving the status of stateless people. Only 62 states have ratified the convention.
1959Kuwait’s nationality law leaves a third of the population—mostly descendants of Bedouin tribes—without citizenship. Many remain stateless to this day.
1961The United Nations adopts The Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness to address some of the root causes of statelessness. The convention creates a positive obligation of states to eliminate and prevent statelessness in nationality laws and practices. Like the 1954 convention, the impact of this convention is limited by the 33 states that have ratified it.
1965–66The Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provide further guarantees on the right to nationality.
1971When Bangladesh split from Pakistan in a civil war, hundreds of thousands of Biharis loyal to Pakistan were stranded. Pakistan has refused to accept these people, many of whom are still living in internal refugee camps, and Bangladesh does not consider them citizens.
1975Mozambique’s 17 year civil war (1975-1992) leaves thousands of children who fled to Zimbabwe to escape the conflict stranded without access to identity documents.
1979The United Nations adopts The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which states that women are equal to men concerning the acquisition or retention of their nationality and the ability to confer nationality to their children.
1976–79Between the Spanish withdrawal in 1976 and the Moroccan annexation of Western Sahara in 1979, an estimated 110,000-155,000 Sahrawis sought refuge in Algeria. Many are still stateless. This is particularly a problem for women as Algerian citizenship is derived exclusively from the father. Children of an Algerian mother and a refugee father are not eligible for Algerian citizenship.
1985The 1985 Citizenship Act in Bhutan—which specifies that applicants for citizenship must have proficiency in the dzongkha language and have 15–20 years of residency in the country—has left more than 100,000 ethnic Nepalese in the country stateless. This is a particular problem for children as they can only qualify for automatic citizenship by birth if both parents are citizens.
1989The United Nations adopts The Convention on the Rights of the Child which contains important articles relevant to protecting the nationality of children. Children have “the right to acquire a nationality” and states are required to ensure the implementation of citizenship rights, especially in instances where the “child would otherwise be stateless.”
1989The Arab-dominated government stripped the citizenship of tens of thousands of black Mauritanians in the country’s south. Thousands are relocated to camps across the border in Senegal. Despite pledges from subsequent governments, thousands are still stateless. This is a particular problem for Mauritanian children born in the Senegalese camps.
1990The African Union adopts The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which includes important provisions on nationality.
1991–99The break-up of Yugoslavia and the resulting Balkan wars also took a heavy toll on the Roma. Tens of thousands were evicted from their homes and fled into neighboring countries, increasing their risk of becoming stateless.
1997The Council of Europe adopts The European Convention on Nationality which encourages states to consider using expedited naturalization procedures for stateless persons and recognized refugees.
2002After the war that ravaged Côte d’Ivoire it is estimated that nearly twenty percent of country’s 18 million inhabitants have documentation problems.
2005The Inter-American Court of Human Rights rules that the Dominican Republic must extend full citizenship to all Dominicans of Haitian descent. The country continues to ignore this ruling.
2006The United Arab Emirates moves to naturalize 10,000 individuals—mainly from Zanzibar—who had been stateless for over three decades.
TodayGlobally 15 million people are stateless
