Nationality in Burundi is regulated by the 2005 Constitution and the revised Code de la Nationalité adopted in 2000. These two texts have conflicting provisions. While the Constitution provides for equal rights in transmission of nationality by men and women, the legislation discriminates against women in terms of their ability to pass their nationality to their children, allowing for this only where the father is unknown or stateless, and provides no rights for the husbands of Burundian women to acquire nationality. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has urged revision of the law on this basis.
Ethnic conflict has led to a number of cycles of conflict which caused hundreds of thousands to flee the country. The largest waves of refugees fled in the early 1970s and early 1990s. Those that had fled in the 1970s were offered the opportunity to naturalize in Tanzania, but some opted to return to Burundi. Those who fled in the 1990s were not given this opportunity and were expected to return. Both groups, however, have faced difficulties in re-accessing full citizenship rights on return. Those that fled earlier because of particular difficulties in repossessing their land (for more information, see “Two People Cannot Wear the Same Pair of Shoes: Citizenship, Land and the Return of Refugees to Burundi”). Those who fled later have faced difficulties related to their presumed affiliation with opposition political forces.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child has welcomed efforts made by the government of Burundi to increase birth registration of children, including the 2006 Presidential Decree guaranteeing free birth registration for children under five. However, the committee expressed concern that a large number of births continue to go unregistered, urging the government to create institutional structures to ensure birth registration especially in rural areas and refugee and IDP camps.
Update of annual report on gender equality. Overview of Nationality Laws Middle East and North Africa […] The nationality laws of Jordan and Libya do not allow women married to foreign nationals to pass their nationality to their children. However,…
Extract: Africa Nationality laws in six countries in Africa do not provide mothers equal rights as fathers to confer their nationality on their children, leading to a risk of statelessness for such children. Under the 1962 Citizenship Law of Somalia,…
OAHR launches “Right to Return” campaign, which coincides with its participation in the World Conference on Statelessness, which will be held in The Hague, Netherlands, on 26 to 28 June 2019. The campaign was launched to help thousands of Omanis…
Extracts: From 16-18 April 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya, the Government of Kenya, the Executive Secretariat of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) co-organised a Ministerial Conference on the Eradication…
Nationality laws which do not grant women equality with men in conferring nationality to their children are a cause of statelessness and a concern for UNHCR under its mandate to prevent and reduce statelessness. Since 2012, UNHCR has issued an…
By Bronwen Manby Key findings and recommendations Extent of statelessness It is not possible to establish the number of stateless persons in the Partner States of the East African Community (EAC), but it is clear that there are tens of…
The Burundi deputies of the National Assembly unanimously adopted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2018, a draft law on the country’s accession to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. The Convention, formally establishing the legal status of…
BUJUMBURA, 19 septembre(Xinhua) — Les députés de l’Assemblée nationale (chambre basse du Parlement bicaméral burundais) ont adopté à l’unanimité, mercredi, un projet de loi portant adhésion du pays à la Convention de 1954 relative au statut des apatrides. Cette Convention,…
L’Assemblée Nationale a analysé et adopté à l’unanimité deux projets de loi, l’un portant adhésion de la République du Burundi à la convention de 1954 relative au statut des apatrides et l’autre portant adhésion à la convention de 1961 relative…
Nationality laws which do not grant women equality with men in conferring nationality to their children are a cause of statelessness and a concern for UNHCR under its mandate to prevent and reduce statelessness. Since 2012, UNHCR has issued an…