In the muddy setting of an overcrowded camp in Bangladesh, Jhora Shama[1] tells me her story. Jhora is an unregistered refugee, a Rohingya, who has been living illegally in Bangladesh for 16 years. She fled to Bangladesh from Arakan [Rakhine]…
The experiences of people of Eritrean origin in Ethiopia and of those deported to Eritrea during the 1998-2000 border conflict illustrate the need for an initiative that would help prevent arbitrary loss of nationality and the resulting risks to other…
Kenyan Nubians have been defined as stateless people because their identity is questioned. They are without doubt one of the country’s most invisible and under-represented communities – economically, socially, politically and culturally. This is because they have been silent victims…
Stateless infants, children and youth, through no fault of their own, inherit circumstances that limit their potential and provide, at best, an uncertain future. They are born, live, and unless they can resolve their situation, die as almost invisible people. Statelessness…
From around 1990 there have been people illegally entering Japan from Thailand. Though born and brought up in Thailand, they have no Thai nationality as their parents were ‘Indochinese refugees’ escaping the first Indochina War (1946-54). As their parents were…
Statelessness lurks behind many problems. All too often, it denies children access to education. It prevents their parents from working legally, and makes persons vulnerable to labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, trafficking in persons, arbitrary arrest and detention, discrimination and other…
Israeli law grants Jews preferred and almost exclusive status with regard to entry into the country. The Interior Minister has extremely limited authority when it comes to restricting an individual who complies with the criteria of the law from immigrating…
Exclusion and inclusion had been part of the process of state formation in the Arab region that took place when Ottoman rule ended and the European colonial powers divided up the Ottoman inheritance directly after the First World War. The…
Whether a result of conflict, shifting borders or the manipulation of the laws and tools used to administer modern day society, stateless people are unwanted and unwelcome and find themselves excluded from society by forces beyond their control. Not only…
Kosovo’s declaration of independence on 17 February 2008 raised the question of statelessness for displaced persons originating from Kosovo. A large number of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians displaced from Kosovo are presumed not to be registered as residents in Montenegro.[1]…