Ten million people around the world are stateless. They are not citizens of a country, they have
no nationality, and often, they lack basic human rights. The current refugee crisis in
Syria has created thousands of stateless children, and as a result, the UN now reports that a
stateless child is born every ten minutes. But, how exactly can a person not have any
nationality? How do you become stateless?
Well, stateless people have almost no real rights, as there is no government to uphold
them. Various conventions have attempted to improve the situation, but without citizenship,
most people cannot vote, go to school, find a job, see a doctor, get married, or pretty
much anything else that requires an ID. They also see high rates of exploitation, violence,
and sexual assault.
Most people think of nationality as something you get by being born in a country, or something
you voluntarily apply. But the concept of citizenship and nationality being conveyed
upon birth is known as “jus soli”, and is not applicable everywhere. There is another
concept called “jus sanguinis”, which determines your nationality through your parents,
regardless of where you are born. The current Syrian stateless crisis is the result of “jus
sanguinis” in Syrian law. Only the father is able to designate nationality, and with
families being ripped apart, there are many Syrian children without fathers who are now
stateless.
The 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, says that children born stateless
must be allowed nationality on the territory where they are born. Unfortunately, Syria
and many other countries are not party to this convention.
In other cases, people are made stateless when their denies them citizenship due to
race or religion. In Myanmar, a long running human rights crisis has seen Rohingya Muslims
marginalized, abused, and denied citizenship on the basis of their ethnic and Muslim roots.
It is also possible for the country you’re living in to dissolve and be replaced by another
country. The new country usually encompasses the former citizens, but in rare cases people
fall through the cracks. In Europe, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to hundreds of thousands
of stateless people, some of whom lacked their original citizenship documents to apply for
new citizenship. Nomadic people, such as the Roma, also called Gypsies, have similar issues
with statelessness. That is, no original documentation. Alternately, a lack of a birth certificate
due to hospitals with poor record keeping, or being born at home can make citizenship
impossible to prove.
Those are the primary reasons for statelessness, although others exist. You can try to renounce
your citizenship, but there are limitations in place to prevent intentional statelessness.
Alternately, you can try to become a citizen of a non-state, like Liberland or Northern
Cypress. Although you technically have citizenship, it would not be internationally recognized,
and so you would be considered stateless.
For decades, the UN has worked to end statelessness, and by 2024 hopes to eradicate the legal blocks
and circumstances causing it. But for the millions left without a homeland, the legal
limbo they are trapped in provides them nearly no opportunities to get out.
Many stateless people happen to be refugees and have no home country to return to. To
learn more about the rights of refugees, watch our video at the top. You can also learn about
the stateless Roma people, sometimes called “gypsies,” at the bottom. Thanks for watching
TestTube News! Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more videos.