‘The term “stateless person” means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law’. Clearly stated in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons by the United Nations, this statement indicates the exceptional status of stateless people who do not belong and are not being protected by any State government. The status of the stateless is different from any other status and identity in nature; a stateless person is not recognised as a citizen and, as a result, is much more vulnerable to rights violations than normal citizens.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s calculation, 4.2 million people worldwide are confirmed to be stateless, as of 2020. The exact figure is unknown due to gaps in data collection and is believed to be much higher than what has been reported.

The four main causes of statelessness are:

Gaps in national laws regarding nationality

Children being born in countries that do not grant birthright citizenship

The emergence of new countries or changes in borders

People losing or being deprived of nationality due to specific reasons, such as living away from their home countries for too long

The causes of statelessness vary and include the dissolution of a State, the political transfer of territory, conflicts, and being born by stateless parents. Take Myanmar as an example, the discriminatory citizenship laws have removed the citizenship of many Rohingya, making them one of the predominant stateless communities in the world. As for Kuwait, many people failed to retain their citizenship during the nation’s political transformation into an independent state. There was also an increasing number of citizens being stripped of their citizenship during the 2011 Arab Spring.

The predicament of statelessness in Asia, such as stateless Rohingya refugees in Myanmar and Thailand having one of the world’s largest populations of stateless people, has been widely discussed in recent years. Taiwan is another Asian country with a long-standing existence of statelessness, which is intertwined with another difficult social issue – that of undocumented migrant workers.

Producing Statelessness How the Predicament of Migrant Workers Generates the Existence of Stateless Children in Taiwan - Humanity Research Consultancy, 2022 DOWNLOAD

post

page

attachment

revision

nav_menu_item

custom_css

customize_changeset

oembed_cache

user_request

wp_block

wp_template

wp_template_part

wp_global_styles

wp_navigation

wp_font_family

wp_font_face

acf-taxonomy

acf-post-type

acf-field-group

acf-field

ai1ec_event

exactmetrics_note

National Hotline 2018 New York State Report
Graphics & InfographicsPublications

The data in this report represents signals and cases from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018 and is accurate as of July 25, 2019. Cases of trafficking may be ongoing or new information may revealed to the National Hotline over time. Consequen...Read More

National Hotline 2017 Nebraska State Report
Graphics & InfographicsPublications

The data in this report represents signals and cases from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017 and is accurate as of July 11, 2018. Cases of trafficking may be ongoing or new information may be revealed to the National Hotline over time. Conseq...Read More

National Hotline 2019 South Carolina State Report
Graphics & InfographicsPublications

The data in this report represents signals and cases from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019 and is accurate as of July 30, 2020. Cases of trafficking may be ongoing or new information may revealed to the National Hotline over time. Consequen...Read More

A Review of Current Promising Practices in the Engagement of People with Lived Experience to Address Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking
News & AnalysisGuidanceGood Practices

This report summarises findings from research into the best ways to engage and involve people with lived experience of modern slavery and human trafficking (including survivors) in international policy and programming on modern slavery. It gathers o...Read More

TAGS: Global