Eswatini

The Eswatini Citizenship Act of 1992 restricts mothers’ abilities to pass down citizenship to their children. There are few exceptions to these restrictions. Procedures for acquiring Swazi citizenship for children of Swazi mothers and foreign/non-citizen fathers are complicated and do not guarantee Swazi citizenship for the child. There are no measures in place to reduce the risk of statelessness for children whose non-citizen/foreign fathers do not claim them. In 2021, the CRC issued recommendations to Eswatini to ensure that a child can derive nationality from the mother, and that children born in Eswatini are not at risk of being stateless.