Ten Million People Are Stateless: UN Reveals The Forgotten Lives Of Those With No Nationality
This Girl And 10 Million Others Like Her Don't Officially Exist
Louise Ridley— Huffington Post UK/PA
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At least ten million people worldwide are currently stateless, and a baby is born with no nationality every ten minutes, according to a UN report which reveals the staggering number of people who are not citizens of any country.
Millions of stateless people are not allowed a nationality and have no identity paperwork, often as a result of discrimination.
Unable to register as a person any country, they are often denied basic rights and services like health, education and a legal job.
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4-year-old Malak's family fled from Iraq to Iran in 1980 after Saddam Hussein stripped their entire Faili Kurd community of their citizenship
Stateless people now major crisis, and live in "a devastating legal limbo" without human rights protection, the UN's refugee agency UNHCR claims.
Most stateless people have suffered discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or gender. Many are refugees, and the UN warns that the growing number of major conflicts such as in Syria, have displaced millions of people.
More than 50,000 children have been born to Syrian refugee parents in Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Egypt since the start of the conflict in 2011. Over a third of the world’s stateless are children.
Leal, a Lebanese woman, has no identity papers, because her grandfather did not register the birth of her father, who then in turn could not register her birth. As she is stateless, Leal cannot work legally, register the existence of her own children or her marriage, or even use services like hospitals. She is unwell and desperately needs a kidney operation.
"To be stateless is like you don't exist," says Leal. "You live in a parallel world with no proof of your identity."
Actress Angelina Jolie, a UNHCR special envoy, and Desmond Tutu, have joined more than 20 celebrities in signing an open letter, saying "now it's time to end statelessness itself", 60 years after the United Nations first agreed to protect stateless people.
There are currently 27 countries that deny women the right to pass their nationality onto their children on an equal basis as men, a restriction which can continue statelessness down generations as women are unable to give their children a nationality.
UNHCR has launched its global "I Belong" campaign, and aims to wipe out statelessness within 10 years.
The open letter said: "Statelessness can mean a life without education, without medical care or legal employment… a life without the ability to move freely, without prospects or hope," the letter said. "Statelessness is inhuman. We believe it is time to end this injustice."
Angelina Jolie said: "Being stateless means you and your children having no legal identity, no passport, no vote, and few or no opportunities to get an education. Ending statelessness would right these terrible wrongs. But it would also strengthen society in countries where stateless people are found, by making it possible to draw on their energy and talents."
Attitudes around statelessness have evolved over the last few years: in 2011 only around 100 states had singed up to the UN's two statelessness treaties, but now the number is 144.
The online petition, aiming to collect ten million signatures in support of ending statelessness within ten years.
10 million stateless people in the world
(01 of11)
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While most of Europe’s Roma possess a nationality, the Zahirovic family remain stateless. They live in a cramped and flimsy room, with no running water, electricity or sanitation facilities in Croatia’s Vrtni Put. The family’s only source of income is from collecting scrap metal.
(02 of11)
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Despite a 2008 Constitutional Court judgment confirming the Bangladeshi citizenship of Urdu speakers, a long history of statelessness and exclusion means that a madrassa (Islamic school) is the only place that many of the children in the Geneva Camp of Mohammadpur in Dhaka can access primary school education.
(03 of11)
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A stateless Burkinabè man collects cocoa on a small plantation near Bouafle. Côte d’Ivoire. Most of the 700,000 people estimated to be stateless in the West African country are comprised of descendants of foreign immigrants who came to work on the country’s cocoa plantations many decades ago. Legislative reforms in 2013 mean that many finally have the chance to acquire Ivorian citizenship.
(04 of11)
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An ethnic Korean who moved to Ukraine in 1993 and lived with a local woman for more than a decade without being able to officially register their union.
(05 of11)
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A Galjeel child plays in an abandoned school in northern Kenya. The Galjeel, numbering 3,500 to 4,000 people, are a sub-clan of Somali descent and have lived in Kenya since the late 1930s. Most stateless Galjeel children in northern Kenya do not go to school. But those who do must walk several miles and are often harassed by other ethnic groups.
(06 of11)
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Valentina, seen with her grandchildren in Riga, Latvia, is the only stateless member of her family. She and her husband moved from Belarus to Latvia in 1983, when both countries were part of the Soviet Union. They had four children, all of whom are now citizens of Latvia. Valentina voted for independence in 1991, but has not taken the Latvian language test that will enable her to get nationality. She is scared that she will not pass. “I’m a citizen of nowhere. When I travel with the family, the immigration officers stare at my non-citizen passport as if it was a museum piece,” says Valentina.
(07 of11)
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Children in Telipok, Sabah, Malaysia. Many children of migrants are unable to establish a nationality. Some are completely undocumented and do not have access to education.
(08 of11)
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This stateless mother came to Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan. Her children are also stateless as a result. Without papers proving her nationality, she cannot receive badly needed social assistance.
(09 of11)
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Nusret, aged 49, is a statelessness person living in Montenegro: “I feel like I’m quarantined,” he says. “I can move around town where people know me, but I can’t go anywhere else without documents. I can’t visit my sick mother in Kosovo.“
(10 of11)
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Seventeen-year-old Mohamed sits in front of his house in the village of Saria, Côte d’Ivoire. He was born in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to Burkinabè parents. They died when he was young and Mohamed came to Côte d’Ivoire with his uncle. His birth was never registered in Burkina Faso and he has no documentation to prove his parents’ Burkinabè nationality. Mohamed has resigned himself to never leaving Saria. “When I tried to travel to neighbouring towns to sell my harvest, policemen or military stopped me and forced me to pay 10,000 West African francs (US$20), which is half of my annual wages,” he reveals.
(11 of11)
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Malak (4) is a Faili Kurd whose family fled from Iraq to Iran in 1980 after Saddam Hussein stripped the entire Faili Kurd community of their Iraqi citizenship, leaving them stateless. Since 2003, after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, reforms have been implemented to allow Faili Kurds to reacquire their Iraqi nationality.