The Ministry of Home Affairs and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to hold a multi-stakeholder meeting on Statelessness in the Kingdom of Eswatini, on the 21st -23rd May 2019. The purpose of the multi-stakeholder meeting is to create a common understanding of statelessness situation in the Kingdom more especially with regard to its prevalence, causes and consequences and will serve as a forum to develop a national strategy to identify, prevent and reduce statelessness.

Millions of people around the world do not have a nationality, some are unable to prove their nationality, and are therefore stateless. Several thousand in Southern Africa find themselves at risk of statelessness. According to UNHCR records, there are approximately 12 million stateless people worldwide, with over 1,021,418 persons stateless in Africa alone — though the actual number is likely to be far higher. There are also indicators of risk and prevalence of statelessness in the Kingdom of Eswatini. A person may find themselves stateless as a result of discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or gender, the transfer of territory between existing states, or conflicting nationality laws.

In 2014, UNHCR launched a Global campaign to eradicate statelessness. In 2016, the SADC parliamentary Forum acknowledged the importance of statelessness and called upon national parliaments and Member States to take concrete actions to end statelessness, including promulgating nationality laws and making policy reform.

To tackle the issue of statelessness across Africa, the Heads of State of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) signed the political will to address the problem in the Abidjan Declaration 2017. 

 For media queries contact:

Mlandvo A. Dlamini
Ministerial Communications Officer
Ministry of Home Affairs
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
Cell: +268 7606 3938

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