Citizenship in Lesotho is governed by the 1993 Constitution, Chapter IV on Citizenship, which provides for citizenship to be attributed at birth based on birth in Lesotho. It is not clear to what extent this rule is applied in practice. Further detail is provided by the Lesotho Citizenship Order, No.16 of 1971, which was partially repealed by the 1991 Constitution. While there is gender equality in transmission of citizenship to children, only a foreign woman can acquire citizenship on the basis of marriage to a citizen.
The law does not allow for dual citizenship. Considering Lesotho’s geographic location being surrounded by South Africa, and the many Basotho who are migrant workers, the issue of dual citizenship has led to litigation in the Lesotho courts. In 2018, a bill was finally approved in parliament to permit dual citizenship.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed concern about the low level of birth registration.
Extracts relating to developments in law and policy: Eswatini On 06 April, an application was made at the High Court of the Kingdom of Eswatini ( Eswatini) to declare laws limiting the passing of citizenship from swazi women to their […]
By Anette Bayer Forsingdal, Dianne Hubbard and Adrijana Corluka Scope and objectives of the study This report focuses on the nexus between birth registration, citizenship and statelessness in the 16 member states of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The […]
This quarterly newsletter includes highlights on the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness, and news from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kingdom of Eswatini, Kingdom of Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Republic of Congo, South Africa and Zambia. DRC: […]
We have seen good progress in achieving equality in nationality laws with 19 countries making partial or full legal reforms and making significant commitments at the regional and global levels since Equality Now began in-depth work advocating for the reform […]
Pule, N. (2021). Digital Identity in Lesotho: Case study conducted as part of a ten-country exploration of socio-digital ID systems in parts of Africa (Towards the Evaluation of Digital ID Ecosystems in Africa: Findings from Ten Countries) [Case study]. Research […]
Research ICT Africa and the Centre for Internet and Society (Delhi, India) partnered in 2021 to examine the design, development, governance, and implementation of evolving socio-digital identity ecosystems in ten African countries. (We explained the background to and reasons for […]
By Rachel Ort & Tumelo Raboletsi By putting people at the center, Lesotho’s Department of National ID and Civil Registry (NICR) in the Ministry of Home Affairs is laying a solid foundation for a simpler, more efficient government. Trusted and […]
By Bronwen Manby Overview of the report This study seeks to provide a comparative analysis of nationality law and its implementation in SADC Member States and highlight the gaps that allow statelessness; to identify the populations that may be stateless […]
Update on pledges Awareness and advocacy Issuance of nationality documentation Strengthening birth registration Legislative reform Accession to conventions Protecting stateless people Measuring statelessness Download : https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/82610
A total of 358 pledges were submitted on the occasion of the the High-Level Segment on Statelessness in October 2019. 252 of these pledges were delivered by States, 73 by civil society organizations, and 33 by international and regional organizations. […]
1. The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI), the Southern African Nationality Network (SANN) and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) make this joint submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), on the right to a nationality and human rights challenges […]
Including the following information on African states: On 17 and 18 January, the Kenya Human Rights Commission convened a workshop on digital identity and citizenship with representatives from the Government of Kenya and from stateless communities in Naivasha, Kenya. The […]