The people who have no country...
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.
Maureen Lynch is the director of research for Refugees International, based
in Washington
Source: IHT