Addressing Statelessness in Madagascar

This report explores the issue of statelessness in Madagascar, focusing on how gender discrimination is affected. It discusses the challenges faced in acquiring citizenship and the impact of discriminative laws. The report also highlights the slow implementation of international laws and the political and socio-cultural factors that impede reforms. Finally, it explores opportunities for implementing reforms and overcoming the impediments towards eliminating statelessness.

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ADDRESSING STATELESSNESS IN MADAGASCAR
STUDENT NAME
INSTITUTION AFFILATION

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Governments are obligated to ensure that they have documented citizens within the
stipulated regional borders. This helps the national government to be aware of the total number
of people, and the size of resources needed to satisfy societal needs. Documentation of citizens
also allows the government to understand changes in demographic patterns and the challenges
arise forthwith. However, numerous challenges are normally encountered in the process of
acquiring citizenship by people within different countries, and this is leads to statelessness of
persons. Nationality is usually conferred to a person at the time of birth, where he/she is provided
with a birth certificate1. Also, the aspect of being born to parent who belongs to a specific
country allows one to automatically become a citizen of the same. In other situations, an
individual is forced to apply for citizenship, but this is limited to cases where an individual is
marrying a spouse from the country of interest. In instances where person resides in a country yet
they don’t have proper documentation to show their country of origin, they end up being referred
to as being “stateless.”2
Statelessness develops out of a number of reasons, and this includes factrs such as;
unforeseeable gaps in the existing laws of a country, discrimination against people who hail from
a particular religious, gender, or ethnic group. Also, this happens when new legal stipulations
lead to territorial transference between states. While numerous countries allow children to gain
nationality directly from their parents, other states have strict laws as to how a child can acquire
citizenship from the parents. This can easily lead to the statelessness of the child incase parents
have moved into a country from a place where nationality transference never existed. All
countries have laws that dictate who, how, and under what circumstances the citizenship of a
person can be struck off3. When such laws are not well defined, then a huge number of people
end up becoming statelessness. Therefore, it would be right to say that the conditions under
which a person may end up becoming stateless are infinite, and they all depend on the region
from which a person resides.
Impeding legal laws in Madagascar
The issue of statelessness not been auguring well with international community, and
numerous efforts have been undertaken to tackle the problem. In review the issue at hand, this
report is going to explore “Statelessness in Madagascar”. More importantly, the report will
explore how gender discrimination has greatly developed as a result of statelessness.
In Madagascar, numerous people have been subjected to poverty and suffering since they
are prevented from accessing resources that are needed for survival. Statelessness in this country
1 Madagascan Constitution 2010, Article 137.
2UN General Assembly Resolution 3274 (XXIV) of 10 December 1974; and UN General
Assembly Resolution 61/137 of 25 January 2007.
3 S. Jaghai, “Statelessness at home: the story of a stateless student at Tilburg Law School” in
Tilburg Law Review, Vol. 19, Issue 1-2, 2014.

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can solely be attributed to the discriminative laws that are upheld, and the absence of political
and institutional goodwill to implements reforms. Discriminated and stateless groups in
Madagascar often fail to access employment, health services, and education. In dire situations,
stateless children put their mothers through psychological torment as they are consequently
blocked from accessing services from governmental institutions. The situation is commonly
experienced among women who belong to racial minority groups, and people with inadequate
financial capabilities. Compounding the problem is the huge level of discrimination from social
cultural and political groups making it hard to enact reforms on the established laws. Efforts to
reform gender laws that are discriminatory have been taking place at a snail’s pace since various
impediments are created by the established status quo that views such new laws as a threat4.
Madagascar has some of the most gender and racial discriminative. The laws ensure that
women, in the absence of a father, cannot be able to pass nationality to their children. This is
worsened by the fact that the approach that is taken in the process of implementing laws creates
discrimination on levels of social economic, race, and religion. Effectively, this limits the ability
of a person to pass citizenship to their children on the basis of religion, socio-economic prowess,
and race. Other contributors to the process include limited awareness, oversight within the
judiciary, bureaucracy, and corruption5. Some efforts have been made to ensure that reforms can
be adopted in order to curtail discrimination. However, an anti-reform agenda continues to be
promoted by the status quo. In Madagascar, the issue of reforms is not viewed as one that is
meant to help eliminate gender inequality, but rather, as a tool for allowing foreigners to easily
access citizenship. The impediment is further fueled by the existence of many ministries that are
ready to fight against legal alterations from the government. The National Assembly is also
reluctant to use its powers in hastening the process of reforms6.
A review of Madagascar’s laws shows that the country has already adopted laws that are
quite non-discriminatory. For instance, it has ratified various international laws such as
Convention on Elimination of Discrimination on Women (CEDAW), Convention on Children
Rights (CRC), and Global Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). More
importantly, the country is a member of African Charter of Children’s Welfare and Rights
(ACRWC), and African Charter on Human Rights (ACHPR)7. Additionally, Madagascar’s
article 6 of the constitution stipulates that all people stand equal under the law, and sexual
discrimination is highly prohibited. However, those who are mandated with implementing laws
4 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Plan of Action on Eradication of
Statelessness, 2017 – 2024, 2017.
5 Z. Albarazi and L. van Waas, “Towards the abolition of gender discrimination in nationality
laws” in Forced Migration Review, Issue 46, May 2014.
6 Cited in Z. Albarazi, “No Legal Bond, No Family Life” in Tilburg Law Review, Vol. 19, Issue
1-2, 2014.
7 UNHCR, Action to Address Statelessness: A Strategy Note, March 2010.

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in Madagascar opt to ignore stipulation under article 6, and they use Code 11 of Madagascar’s
Nationality laws8.
Selective implementation of the law leaves many groups of people at a disadvantage as
women are discriminated while men are given the upper hand. This also creates an unfavorable
situation for children who have been born out of wedlock as they are not recognized as citizens
of the country. Children in Madagascar are only allowed to confer citizenship from their fathers,
who in this case are Madagascar citizens9. Mothers are only limited to confer citizenship to their
children when they are married to husbands whose origin is unknown although this happens in
very limited cases. Otherwise, a child is not considered to be a citizen of Madagascar.
Additionally, Code 11 of Madagascar’s Nationality laws, allows a man to confer nationality to a
spouse whose origin is unknown, but not the other way around10.
While article 16 of Madagascar’s Nationality codes allows a child born to either spouse
who has Madagascar’s Nationality to acquire citizenship through application. Contrary to the
aforementioned law, article 18 of the same statures may deny nationality to such children on the
basis of indignity, mental or physical disability, and inadequate/default assimilation. More so,
children who want to claim nationality through application are not only put through extensive
eligibility checks, but they will only be offered citizenship as seen fit by the government. In this
case, discrimination can also be extended upon adopted children, and women who desire to
acquire Madagascan citizenship based on spouses who already reside in the country.
Demographic Concerns
The slow the process of implementing international laws over Madagascan statutes has
partly been fueled by the view that rampant registration of persons may lead to significant
alterations on the demographic composition. This has contributed to the rise in levels of racism,
xenophobic attacks, and discrimination. In Madagascar, foreigners are considered to be invaders
and their infiltration into the country is not welcome. The existence discriminative laws have
created a situation where the general society believes in the negative impacts of registering a
huge population11. While there are numerous resources within Madagascar, the society has been
led to appall foreigners. It is argued that foreigners would influence how laws are enacted and
consequently implemented12. Most Madagascans have a negative attitude towards legal reforms
that pertain to nationality. This is because the process is not viewed as one that is meant to tackle
gender inequality, rather, it is thought to be having the objectives of neutralizing the Karana
8 Abidjan Declaration of Ministers of ECOWAS Member States on Eradication of Statelessness,
25 February 2015.
9 UNHCR, The Future of Syria. Refugee Children in Crisis, 2013.
10 UNHCR, Policy on Detention Monitoring, 3 December 2015.
11Declaration of International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) Member States on
the Eradication of Statelessness, 16 October 2017, CIRGL/CIMR/DEC/15/10/2017.
12 EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2012, 9431/13, 13 May
2013.

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community. This would allow power to be extended to other people hence destabilizing the
status quo. The Karana Community has a huge political and financial influence in Madagascar.
Therefore, members of the group wouldn’t want to be denied the opportunity to continue
wielding power as they deem fit13.
This argument falls short of the fact that a huge number of poor people also belong to the
Karana community, and are consistently discriminated and denied citizenship on the aspects of
gender or socio-economic status. The population in the Madagascar believes that the registration
many people from this minority group will influence the position of most Madagascan’s, and
will allow more foreigners to be consequently registered. The exploitation of such a narrative
creates division and fear within the society, and eventually leaves one group of people to be
largely discriminated and left stateless. A huge population of Madagascans are highly tight fisted
due to the existence and propagation of such notions.
Prejudice at socio cultural levels
The existence of status quo in Madagascar continues to oppress the majority of the
population. In any society, women form the largest segment of the population. Therefore,
discriminating against such a group consequentially ignores the well-being the offspring’s, who
are not only women but also men. Generally, there are some slight efforts to abolish
discrimination against women and children in Madagascar. However, the major impediment
revolves around abolishment of race discrimination as it is feared that doing so would provide an
opportunity for the Karana Community to be massively registered14. Since there is no political
goodwill to uptake Nationality law reforms due to the existence of powerful people in
government, changes in the legislations would only be possible when politicians are convinced to
have a change in mindset. This could be achieved through the media, which to this point
continues to be pessimistic on the issue of reforms. This has for instance been experienced from
the stereotypical views of major stakeholders within the media community15.
Politics
The political nature of Madagascar has been quite restrictive on the powers of the
national assembly. It is only until recently that members of the national assembly have been
enabled to effectively legislate over the formulation of various laws. However, there still exists
numerous ministries in Madagascar that are a huge impediment towards the implementation of
reforms. As a matter of fact, legislators tend to doubt the willingness of the president to support
changes on nationality laws if proposals for such an amendment were ever brought up. Across
13 UNHCR, Statelessness: More than 3,000 stateless people given Turkmen nationality, 7
December 2011.
14 UNHCR’s position regarding the detention of refugee and migrant children in the migration
context, January 2017.
15 UNHCR, Background Note on Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness, 8 March
2014.

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the political landscape in Madagascar, altering nationality laws is considered to be very
sensitive16. As much as various stakeholders would have just a small ability to impact on how the
reform process would take place, they would largely determine the extent to which the reform
process would occur. For instance, the judiciary has widely been biased against alteration of
nationality laws. In other countries, ratified international laws are normally used in place of
national statutes that are conflicting. However, in Madagascar, the judicial system is highly
discriminative and only relies on the implementation of domestic statutes. Therefore, this leaves
the stateless individuals at the mercy of the judicial systems as they are left to be a source of
income for the former17.
Opportunities that for implementing reforms and overcoming impediments towards
eliminating Statelessness
Statelessness of individuals within a country impacts negatively on progress as the larger
population continues to wallow in poverty. In response to this, the UNHCR identified a 10-point
plan that can be used to tackle the issue. However, in order to mitigate statelessness, there needs
to be an enabling environment that will allow reforms to be implemented. Implementing laws
that curb statelessness at an international level wouldn’t be fruitful since any country would
always ends up implementing laws in a manner that it deems fit18. For success to be attained in
Madagascar, various enabling factors needs to be exploited by the political class, or else,
statelessness will forever remain to be an issue that cannot be resolved.
Timing
Every political system tends to evolve after a particular period. This would provide an
opportunity for Madagascar’s parliamentarians to try and implement reforms on the nationality
laws. In countries where reforms successfully worked, and women rights ended up being
respected, the issue of timing was key in enabling change to be adopted. Change is normally
adopted when the current laws become detrimental towards the general progress of the society.
Therefore, identifying the right time to campaign for change is key towards reforming
Madagascar’s Nationality laws. Trying to implement alterations before the right time would only
be a futile undertaking. The right timing for Madagascar would most likely be at a time when
reforms that focus on equality and discrimination are undertaken on the constitution. As time
goes by, an environment that will allow tackling of discriminating Nationality laws will end up
being created19.
The Government
16 UNHCR, ExCom Conclusion no. 111 (LXIV) of 17 October 2013.
17 European Court of Justice, Janko Rottmann v Freistaat Bayern, Case C-135/08 , 2 March 2010.
18 Srinuan Soakhamnuan, “A personal story about statelessness” in Tilburg Law Review, Vol. 19,
Issue 1-2, 2014.
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This is the most important institution that can cement efforts to alter immigration laws.
The Madagascan government can reform laws that contribute to statelessness through altering
the Nationality statutes so that they conform to the international community laws that address
human rights. Rather than strictly using its nationality codes, Madagascar should strive to ensure
that all arms of the government adhere to international statutes, and also allow mothers to confer
citizenship to their kids irrespective of the presence or absence of a father. Secondly, the
government should do away with the strict eligibility checks that it places on children prior to
offering them citizenship. When the government enacts laws, the burden of implementation falls
upon the civil servants. Therefore, the latter should be intensively trained on the right approaches
of implementing laws since this will eliminate unintended discrimination. Circumstances under
which a person cannot be offered citizenship should also be taught to avoid unforeseen denial of
citizenship to children who are quite eligible20.
Why reforms of the impeding laws should be undertaken with haste
Elimination of recurring Human Rights Violations
Human rights should be enjoyed irrespective of the religious affiliation, gender, or
nationality of a person. Statelessness ensures that the population within Madagascar is subjected
to conditions prevent human beings to enjoy their rights. Worst of all, the discrimination occurs
on people who don’t have any financial prowess, thereby, causing them to remain helpless.
When discrimination is undertaken by authorities, the society also follows suit and ensures that
the living conditions of those who are being discriminated are unbearable. Statelessness exposes
victims to poverty, and this destroys the dreams and hopes of families that are being
discriminated upon. When the hopes of the younger generation are trashed, people are forced to
look ways of surviving. This may force people to engage in violence only to ensure that they can
survive on a daily basis. This situation may create extreme insecurity within the whole country,
and this becomes counterproductive in the end21.
Citizenship eliminates restriction on movement of people
In order to move within a country, it is necessary that someone should be able to produce
citizenship letters. Many stateless people in Madagascar are always afraid of moving around
since they are afraid that they may be arrested and sent to jail. Restriction of movement
consequently counters growth since people cannot even participate in business both within and
outside the country. Therefore, areas that have a high population of people continues to be
marginalized as those people cannot access the outside world22. Additionally, discrimination
against people of a particular group raises a lot of questions on the liberty and security of the
20 The Equal Rights Trust, Unravelling Anomaly. Detention, discrimination and the protection
needs of stateless persons, 4th May 2010.
21 Z. Albarazi and J. Tucker, Citizenship as a political tool: the recent turmoil in the MENA and
the creation and resolution of statelessness, 2014.
22 Equal Rights Trust, Unraveling Anomaly, July 2010.

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oppressed. Restricting movement ensures that family ties are cut off and employment
opportunities are lost irrespective of the education prowess of a person. Within Madagascar,
commerce is a critical component of the nation23. However, it this mostly occurs mostly around
the coastal areas like Reunion or Comoros islands. Such trade routes can only be accessed when
a person has proper documentation. However, in order to ensure that people can make ends meet,
they end up traveling there illegally without considering the possibility of going to jail. Those
who refuse to take the risk remain poor as they cannot access money nor buy food for
themselves24.
Healthcare
This is a critical component in any society. When it is denied to the masses, then the idea
of progress remains to be a fallacy. Without proper documentation in Madagascar, one cannot be
allowed to access health services nor receive financial support from the government. For those
who are able to access the services due to their socio-economic strength, they have to pay higher
fees than those who have documentation. Additionally, the inability to access documentation
places a lot of psychological stress on the stateless individuals, and this is a health risk in itself.
Most people fail to sleep properly, and they develop high blood pressure, and depression. In
absence of equitable health services, people are forced to depend heavily on charitable groups,
whose services are never assured due to the high number of clients.
Conclusion
A lot has to be done in order to tackle statelessness of people within Madagascar. As
much as the country recognizes the international statutes that are meant to protect human rights,
implementing the laws will have to be rigorously undertaken. Likewise, international statutes
such as the 1961 Convention on Countering Statelessness and Status of Stateless Persons will
have to be signed by the country. This step would effectively ensure that Madagascar becomes
part and parcel of international standards of human protection. The nationality Laws of
Madagascar will also have to be challenged by parliamentarians so that the country can have a
chance at abolishing discrimination and reducing the population of stateless people. At the
moment, Madagascar continues to violate human rights, and this constantly exposes many people
to hopelessness25. When reforms are properly undertaken in Madagascar, the country will
provide a blue print for other African countries to follow suit, and the importance of women in
the society will further be appreciated. Reliance on colonial era laws will have to be dropped as
this prevents Madagascar from being able to compete at on an international level with regards to
protection of human rights. It is essential that all people in Madagascar are able to have equal
23 The First Arab Conference on Good Practices & Regional Opportunities to Strengthen
Women's Nationality Rights League of Arab States Secretariat General, 1-2 October 2017.
24 European Court of Human Rights, Genovese v. Malta, Application 53124/09, 11 October
2011.
25 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Good Practices Paper – Action
3: Removing Gender Discrimination from Nationality Laws, 6 March 2015.

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access to healthcare, education, be part and parcel of the political engagements within the
country. Only then, will Madagascar be able to provide equal opportunities for its population.
Bibliography
Human Rights Treaties
See, for instance, article 15(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
UNHCR, ExCom Conclusion no. 111 (LXIV) of 17 October 2013.
National Law

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Madagascan Constitution 2010, Article 137
Cases
European Court of Justice, Janko Rottmann v Freistaat Bayern, Case C-135/08 , 2 March 2010.
European Court of Human Rights, Genovese v. Malta, Application 53124/09, 11 October 2011
Statutes
See, among others, UN General Assembly Resolution 3274 (XXIV) of 10 December 1974; and
UN General Assembly Resolution 61/137 of 25 January 2007
Regional Treaties
Abidjan Declaration of Ministers of ECOWAS Member States on Eradication of Statelessness,
25 February 2015, available at:http://www.refworld.org/docid/54f588df4.html.
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Plan of Action on Eradication of
Statelessness, 2017 – 2024, 2017, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5915c88a4.html
Books, Articles, Reports and Studies
See, for instance, Equal Rights Trust, Unraveling Anomaly, July 2010.
See, for instance, Z. Albarazi and J. Tucker, Citizenship as a political tool: the recent turmoil in
the MENA and the creation and resolution of statelessness, 2014, available at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2376426.
See for further details http://www.equalnationalityrights.org; as well as the article by Z. Albarazi
and L. van Waas, “Towards the abolition of gender discrimination in nationality laws” in Forced
Migration Review, Issue 46, May 2014, available at:
http://www.fmreview.org/en/afghanistan/albarazi-vanwaas.pdf.
Cited in Z. Albarazi, “No Legal Bond, No Family Life” in Tilburg Law Review, Vol. 19, Issue
1-2, 2014.
S. Jaghai, “Statelessness at home: the story of a stateless student at Tilburg Law School” in
Tilburg Law Review, Vol. 19, Issue 1-2, 2014
Srinuan Soakhamnuan, “A personal story about statelessness” in Tilburg Law Review, Vol. 19,
Issue 1-2, 2014.
Reports

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The Equal Rights Trust, Unravelling Anomaly. Detention, discrimination and the protection
needs of stateless persons, 2010.
See UNHCR, Action to Address Statelessness: A Strategy Note, March 2010, available at:
http://www.refworld.org/docid/4b9e0c3d2.html.
UNHCR, Statelessness: More than 3,000 stateless people given Turkmen nationality, 7
December 2011, via http://www.unhcr.org/4edf81ce6.html.
UNHCR, The Future of Syria. Refugee Children in Crisis, 2013, available at
http://unhcr.org/FutureOfSyria/born-in- exile.html#scope-of-the-problem.
EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2012, 9431/13, 13 May
2013.
UNHCR in massive sorting effort to return ID papers to Syrian refugees, October 2013, available
at http://www.unhcr.org/525fe1569.html.
UNHCR, Background Note on Gender Equality, Nationality Laws and Statelessness, 8 March
2014, available at: www.refworld.org/docid/532075964.html.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Good Practices Paper – Action 3:
Removing Gender Discrimination from Nationality Laws, 6 March 2015.
See UNHCR, Policy on Detention Monitoring, 3 December 2015, available
at:http://www.refworld.org/docid/564199b54.html.
See UNHCR’s position regarding the detention of refugee and migrant children in the migration
context, January 2017, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5885c2434.html.
The First Arab Conference on Good Practices & Regional Opportunities to Strengthen Women's
Nationality Rights League of Arab States Secretariat General, 1-2 October 2017 – Outcome
Statement, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5a256c4a4.html