Global Policy Forum

By Maureen Lynch*

There are millions of people in the world who are citizens of nowhere. They cannot vote, they cannot get jobs in most professions, they cannot own property or obtain a passport. These "stateless" people face discrimination, sexual and physical violence and socioeconomic hardship. Often they are denied access to health care and education.

The vulnerability of statelessness is captured in the words of a Bidoon living in the United Arab Emirates who asks: "What have we done to be treated like animals? We can't get a job and can't move around. We are between the earth and the sky, like a boat without a port."

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that "everyone has the right to a nationality." But statelessness remains a reality in all regions of the world. The exact numbers are not known, but a conservative estimate is 11 million stateless persons around the world. They include groups whose situation is relatively well recognized, like Europe's Roma, the Palestinians and the Kurds, and groups whose plight is virtually unknown, like people from the former Soviet bloc, some of Thailand's ethnic groups, the Bhutanese in Nepal, Muslim minorities in Burma and Sri Lanka, and ethnic minorities of the Great Lakes region of Africa like the Batwa "Pygmy" and the Banyamulenge.

The myriad causes of statelessness may include political upheaval, targeted discrimination (often for reasons of race or ethnicity), differences in laws between countries, laws relating to marriage and birth registration, expulsion of a people from a territory, nationality based only on descent (usually that of the father), abandonment and lack of means to register children.

One stateless population that the world has neglected are 250,000 to 300,000 Biharis (also called stranded Pakistanis), who were stripped of their citizenship after Bangladesh became a nation because they sided with West Pakistan during the struggle for independence. For the past two decades these people have lived in 66 squalid camps throughout Bangladesh. Recently the Bangladeshi government cut food rations to camps, forcing Bihari families to go without food for two or three days in a row.

States have the right to determine the procedures and conditions for acquisition and termination of citizenship, but statelessness and disputed nationality can only be addressed by the very governments that regularly breach the norms of protection and citizenship. To date, only 57 states are party to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and even fewer, just 29 states, are party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The United States has not signed either one. And despite its mandate, only two staff members in the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees focus on helping the world's stateless people.

The gap between rights and reality can be closed. Governments must respect the right of all individuals to have a nationality. Countries should sign and adhere to international standards to protect stateless people and reduce statelessness by facilitating naturalization processes. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees can be strengthened as the lead agency in accordance with its mandate on statelessness. The United States, whose aid budget often helps countries who have stateless people within their borders, should certainly require and evaluate the protection of stateless people.

Prevention and reduction of statelessness will contribute to the promotion of human rights, to an improved quality of life for those affected and to increased security around the globe. It will go a long way toward bringing millions of people closer to freedom, which truly gives the world its best hope for peace.

About the Author: Maureen Lynch is the director of research for Refugees International, based in Washington. Her report, ‘‘Lives On Hold,'' can be found online at www.refugeesinternational.org.