A website for statelessness: www.whatisstatelessness.org

When the Statelessness Programme in Tilburg University was created by Mrs. Van Waas, I was a teenager dreaming of working in a university and becoming like Mrs. Van Waas - make a change and help other people. I knew those were my dreams, but I did not have any idea about how to make them a reality. In 2012, I took the chance to study in Tilburg University, moved to the Netherlands and stared a life changing journey.

           

Enrolled in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Bachelor, I truly enjoyed my studies. Nevertheless, I had great difficulties adapting in the new environment and learning to live alone. I started searching for more opportunities than just attending lectures and studying. I dreamed of a challenge and a real experience from the academic area. Applying for an internship in the Statelessness Programme was just a dream that seemed quite impossible before I realized that I was actually given the opportunity for 6 months to work for the world’s most innovative and hardworking programme about Statelessness.

          

I joined the Statelessness team as an intern to help with awareness raising on statelessness, by creating a web-site about Statelessness and Nationality. While still a student in high school I was highly influenced by my brother, a computer engineer, and my mother, a physics teacher; they made me passionate about studying and creating web-sites. When applying for the Statelessness Programme I had basic knowledge on how to manipulate ready web-site templates and adjust them to the content desired. Nevertheless, I was lacking the essential knowledge of building my own web-site from a scratch. Realizing how important the Statelessness programme is, I decided that it would be highly inappropriate to use free online template and therefore, I started taking online courses for programming. My internship was 6 months, 3 months of which I spent studying how to create the perfect web-site for the needs of the Programme. In that sense, I am extremely grateful at Laura van Waas and everyone in the team for giving complete freedom to decide on my own and to create the web-site gradually. Working on Microsoft Web Expression 4, the web-site has a ‘bone’ structure of HTML, with some HTML5 elements, and a ‘skin’ structure of CSS and j-Query. I really wanted to create a PHP form for comments, but for now my knowledge of PHP is insufficient to do that, although I tried.

            

The web-site presents two sides of the Statelessness problem – Statelessness and Nationality. Before, my mind could not understand how it is possible one legal term to envelop to such a degree a human creature and condemn it to belong nowhere. The right side of the web-site is about Nationality and the left is about Statelessness, and each of the two parts have their own drop-down menus. The main purpose of this separation of those two terms is the clear distinction between the legal terms and the social consequences of those terms. The web site dedicates parts to all aspects of both Statelessness and Nationality that affect all people in the world – those with and those without citizenship.

            

The Statelessness section gives more information about what statelessness itself is, how it occurs and why, as well as what can be done about statelessness and what is done today by whom. In order for the Statelessness part to be fully understood, the essence of Nationality has to be explained as well. Hence the web-site is separated in two mutually complementing parts.  In the Nationality part, you can find why we have citizenship of different countries and how this affects our lives. People can learn how due to the concept of Nationality and the legal gaps connected with it, another legal term developed – Statelessness.

            

Creating a duo-website about both Statelessness and Nationality was extremely helpful for me as well. Working in such a great professional environment I started feeling at home, surrounded by friends. The Statelessness Programme and everyone working in it helped me grow as a person and to create something meaningful. I received great help from Mrs. Van Waas and Miss Albarazi for the content of the web-site. Back then, being a first year student, I realize now that I was not able to explain the essence of the Statelessness issue without the great guidance of the before mentioned people. Most of all, I am endlessly grateful for being found, when I was lost. That is what the Statelessness Programme in Tilburg University is doing – it is helping people all over the world to find their place, where they belong.  

Zhasmina Kostadinova, former intern with the Statelessness Programme and designer of the website www.whatisstatelessness.org

The story behind finding some of Europe’s invisible people

Although hundreds of thousands of stateless people live in Europe, finding them can be a challenge at times. An important part of the ENS campaign to improve protection of stateless persons in Europe is helping to take away the invisibility of the issue of statelessness in Europe. As part of this campaign, testimonies of stateless individuals in Europe have been collected in an effort to give statelessness a ‘human face’.

Contributing to this campaign, the Statelessness Programme at Tilburg University has been gathering stories of stateless persons in the Netherlands since September 2013. The Netherlands has not established a statelessness determination procedure, which means that it is unclear how many stateless persons there are in the country. In 2010, over 85,000 people were registered with Dutch municipalities as stateless or “nationality unknown” – many of the latter may also be in fact stateless. In this blog post I would like to take you through the journey, the challenges and surprises, of giving a ‘human face’ to statelessness.

Identifying stateless persons

Many individuals, non-profit organizations and NGO’s find the phenomenon of statelessness very confusing or do not have a full understanding of what it means. So where does one begin in first locating and then trying to identify an individual as stateless?  At first, it seems like looking for a needle in a haystack, but after seven months of work I was able to meet 15 stateless persons and families, all with different backgrounds, which helped painting a clearer picture of the countless situations which exist for a person to be or end up stateless in the Netherlands.

In the first two months I had contacted 200+ organizations across the country that in some way deal with (irregular) migrants, and many of them had questions about how to identify stateless people. They felt unable to distinguish stateless people from other non-nationals: in their eyes, many of the irregular migrants they assist face the same issues, including being unable to return to their country of origin and the inability to prove their nationality or to acquire identity documents. Nonetheless, with help from students at Tilburg University, fellow colleagues and interns at the Statelessness Programme but also lawyers, volunteers at non-profit organizations and religious institutions I was able to get in touch with stateless people who would be willing to share their story.

I have met stateless persons from as young as 3 months right up to 80 years of age from different countries including Myanmar, China, Congo, Ukraine, Viet Nam, Macedonia, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Palestine but also children born stateless in the Netherlands. Some have never been recognized as a national of any state while others had their nationality withdrawn for a variety of reasons and are unable to reacquire their nationality.

Challenges faced by stateless people in the Netherlands

Some of the stateless persons I met possess a residence permit, often based on an immigration amnesty law which was adopted in 2007. They face the problem that they are now unable to naturalize because of their inability to prove their statelessness. I also met stateless people who are staying irregularly in the Netherlands. The lack of a statelessness determination procedure is causing inadequate protection for these people. As a matter of fact, more than half of all persons I met have never even acquired a residence permit, even those that have been living here in the Netherlands for over 15 years. As a result, they have been completely dependent on interim-aid from, for instance, shelters and churches. I noticed a common wish shared amongst them – to return to their homeland and if that is not possible to be somewhere in the world where their statelessness is acknowledged. For many of them, what seems like such a simple wish is accompanied by countless procedures, a web of requirements they are unable to meet, and the lack of proper documentation.

Many people live in fear of being detained because of their residence status and, therefore, live in loneliness and some have not left the city or village in which they have lived for years. Others have been traumatized from being detained multiple times for not possessing identity documents, not only in the Netherlands but also abroad, and struggle with psychological and physical health issues due to stress, about the constant worry about their legal procedures and their desperate hope to acquire a regularized stay and feel human again. This was prevalent, especially amongst the young adults, many of whom mentioned that they do not have any prospects for realizing their future plans such as studying, working, having a family or being able to travel. Hopes and ambitions shared amongst many of their peers. They say not to have any form of control over their own lives because all they can do is wait, wait for a residence permit which enables them to have a normal life.

It has really been an eye-opening experience for me to see the poor conditions that some of these stateless persons are forced to live in here in the Netherlands. Some of them are living in real poverty, moving between makeshift shelters such as the ones which have been constricted in a parking garage with little access to running water and electricity, or inside a former prison, knowing that in three months it will be time to pack up again and look for a new ‘home’. My first reaction to this was: how is it possible that people have to live in such circumstances in what is a so-called ‘first-world country’?

As mentioned, I also met stateless people who possess a residence permit and their human rights are, contrary to those who are irregularly in the Netherlands, much better protected. It has been very interesting to see their perspective on the phenomenon of statelessness, especially after meeting the stateless persons who do not have a legalized stay in the Netherlands. According to them, not having a nationality disadvantages them in some ways, such as not being able to vote or to travel to some countries but most of them are studying at a university and they are all determined to make a good living. They refuse to let the fact that they do not have a nationality keep them from their ambitions and dreams to better themselves - instead it is just a personal circumstance that requires more administrative work for them and more bureaucracy.

Some reflections

In the past eight months I have been able to get to know only 15 of the 600,000 stateless persons in Europe a little better. One of the challenges with this storytelling project was, at first, building trust with some of the stateless persons and letting them know that they will not get in trouble for sharing their story and giving insights of what it is like to being stateless and living in a European country. After spending some time with the stateless persons, they actually truly appreciated that someone is taking the time to talk with them and listen to their story.

What upsets me the most is to know that these persons, who are just a few faces in the crowd of thousands of stateless persons in Europe, do not receive adequate protection from the country in which they currently live. When they explain to me how statelessness affects their daily lives, I can see sorrow and confusion reflected in their eyes, along with a faint spark of hope when they express their wishes for the future. I can feel that they are tired and frustrated of being stuck in legal limbo. Yet they acknowledge that it is important to share their story in order to raise awareness for the issue of statelessness, knowing it will not help their individual case at this point.

More attention is now being paid to statelessness in Europe, including thanks to this ENS campaign. Last month, Greg Constantine visited the Netherlands on the invitation of ENS and the Statelessness Programme. Working with Greg and seeing his dedication as a human rights photographer to make the issue of statelessness visible is admirable. For the past eight years, Greg has devoted his career to meeting stateless people worldwide but had yet to meet stateless people in a Western European country. During his visit here, he took his time really getting to know the stateless persons I had been speaking to and was able to capture the stories of these unique individuals through photographs. Afterwards, everyone was genuinely happy to have met Greg and found it an opportunity they would not want to miss. Besides telling their own stories, they were curious to hear more about Greg’s work. For instance, a stateless Rohingya from Myanmar said: ‘I am so happy to have met Greg. He has been to Myamar and Bangladesh several times and it feels good to talk about my situation with someone who understands and knows from experience what it is like there’. A photo essay with these stories will be ready by September, in time to be exhibited at the First Global Forum on Statelessness in The Hague and to be used as part of the ENS campaign.

It is also fantastic news that more than 3500 people have already showed concern and signed the ENS petition to protect statelessness in Europe since it was launched three weeks ago. However, more signatures are needed to show leaders of Europe that the issue of statelessness cannot be ignored.

Sangita Jaghai, Intern at the Statelessness Programme

Note that this blog post first appeared on the website of the European Network on Statelessness, here: http://www.statelessness.eu/blog/story-behind-finding-some-europe%E2%80%99s-invisible-people.  

An unforgettable experience working on statelessness with UNHCR sponsored by the Statelessness Programme

In March 2013, I started an internship that I had long awaited with much excitement. Through the International Statelessness Internship Award I had the opportunity to intern at the Statelessness Unit of the UNHCR Regional Coordinator’s Office in Bangkok and work on an assignment I found interesting, challenging, and intellectually stimulating. This blog is to share my internship experiences with students and potential recipients of the International Statelessness Internship Award.

I arrived in Bangkok one week before the start date of my internship to settle down and to discover the city. After a week of acclimatizing myself to a new environment I was excited to start work. On my first day, I attended a regional team meeting where everyone gives an update on what they are working on, those who went on mission share their findings, and developments and approaches to deal with specific situations in the region were discussed. After the regional team meeting, I sat down to talk about my terms of reference and which assignment would be best to start with the other members of the statelessness team Nick Oakeshott (Regional Protection Officer(Statelessness)) and Bongkot Napaumporn (Protection Associate (Statelessness)).

The main objective of my internship was to conduct a legal analysis of the nationality laws of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam (ASEAN member states). This study aimed to provide an explanatory analysis of nationality laws and possible gaps, and identifying good practices in the region relating to the prevention, reduction, and protection of stateless people that can set an example for other member states on how to tackle statelessness-related issues. The underlying reason for this study was based on recommendations to reduce and prevent statelessness in the migration context made by the participants at  the Regional Workshop on Statelessness and the Rights of Women and Children held jointly between ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (known as “AICHR”)and UNHCR.[1]

During the first week I was mainly occupied with background reading on the history of migration flows in Southeast Asia to obtain a better understanding of the situation and challenges in this region in relation to statelessness. I also read several studies on nationality laws and the main causes of statelessness in ASEAN member states that had already been completed in 2010 and 2011.[2]

Besides that, I also participated in other activities during the first week. For instance, I was invited to attend a regional policy meeting where staff at the senior level discussed key topics to further develop regional policy on protection issues, and to ensure that UNHCR policies at regional and national level are in line with global objectives. As a note taker it was a great opportunity to learn more about statelessness, maritime movements, Refugee Status Determination, and temporary protection in relation to certain groups of people in South East Asia.

During the 2^nd/ 3^rd week of March, I took the preliminary steps towards analysis of the nationality laws. I compiled a bibliography of all (legal) sources and verified whether the set of nationality laws and implementing regulations available on Refworld (UNHCR’s research tool available at www.refworld.org) were complete and up-to-date. Furthermore, I started writing a methodology and a plan of action for this study.

After feedback from my supervisors on the methodology, I started to analyze nationality laws. The nationality laws were assessed as follows: 

First, the relevant national provisions that relate to international standards to prevent and reduce statelessness were identified and further described by setting out the substantive and procedural requirements. Second, the substantial and procedural requirements listed in the relevant national provisions and the relevant international standards were compared in order to verify whether the national provision complies with the relevant international norm. Third, the international standards that are binding on the relevant ASEAN Member State were stressed, taking into account treaty obligations, and any reservations and declarations that a state has made, as well as norms of customary international law.

I received feedback from my supervisors after every country analysis which was always a great learning moment, especially in terms of how to explain in a clear and systematic way why a specific provision in a nationality law can cause statelessness. Interpreting nationality laws from ASEAN Member States, looking up relevant information provided through (non) treaty based monitoring mechanisms and other sources gave me a better understanding of the challenges that are faced in the region in relation to statelessness. Due to the fact that almost none of the ASEAN Member States are Parties to the Statelessness Conventions and are therefore not bound by them, the analysis included consideration of whetehr or not a State would hypothetically be in line with the Statelessness Conventions, as well as on the statelessness related international standards that are binding on the relevant ASEAN Member State (e.g. Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Article 9 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). 

At the end of July, I started with the write up of the report. I noticed that the more I looked into the nationality laws, the more I came across new interesting issues relating to statelessness. Whilst writing a report of my findings, I realized that statelessness can in theory be caused in countless ways. Besides that, it should also be noted that a gap exists in law and practice which leads to new cases of statelessness that cannot be derived from analyzing the nationality laws on its own.

Looking back at close to 6 months interning at the Regional Coordinator’s Office, the first thought that comes into mind is that it has truly been a valuable experience. I first took interest in statelessness - the how and what, when I was interning for nearly a year with the Statelessness Programme where I looked into statelessness in the Netherlands. It comes with no surprise that I was thrilled to receive the Internship Award and get an opportunity to learn more about statelessness in South East Asia, a region where relatively more people are affected by this phenomenon compared to the Netherlands. Not only have I learned more about statelessness in South East Asia, I have also been able to put knowledge into practice that I gained by participating in the Statelessness Summer Course and a bachelor course on nationality, statelessness and human rights offered at Tilburg University.

Most importantly, with this internship I have gained a better understanding of how statelessness fits in the field of human rights, the relevance of (non) treaty based monitoring mechanism and the way UNHCR implements its mandate to prevent, protect and reduce (and hopefully eradicate) statelessness by, among others, gathering information on statelessness, promoting accession to the Statelessness Conventions, dealing with cases of stateless persons and supporting legislative changes/ improvement to existing procedures to help stateless people acquire a nationality.

Furthermore, during this internship I had the chance to look into a case of a stateless person and to sit in several UN security debriefings and I was fortunate enough to attend events aimed at promoting awareness for international human rights. Some of these events were for instance; lectures given by experts working in the field of human rights and professors on different human rights related issues, a red carpet premiere of the ‘Girl Rising’ movie which tells the stories of nine brave girls from around the globe who have had to overcome hardship in their lives, the Refugee Film Festival in conjunction with World Refugee Day to shed light on some of the hardships encountered by families torn apart by war.

I would encourage future recipients of the International Statelessness Internship Award not to only focus on their own project but also try and get involved in the day-to-day statelessness work and participate in other events. I would, for instance, recommend integrating in your terms of reference to assist the Statelessness Officer(s) in their daily practices one day a week besides working on your own project. This would not only give more variation in your own tasks but it would be an opportunity to get to know the organization better and to find out if you are keen on working at UNHCR in the future.

Accommodation and living in Thailand:

Before flying out to Bangkok, I looked into apartments that are for rent in areas near the office and made an appointment with a reliable agent to view one of the apartments that she rented out. When I was in Bangkok I realized that it is easy to find apartments and condos for rent so there is no need to look into housing arrangements too much prior to arrival. I decided to stay in a hotel for a week and look for accommodation in the meantime. The average cost of renting an apartment varies greatly, depending what your requirements are.

Funding received from the Statelessness Programme is sufficient to cover accommodation and living in Bangkok. Accommodation can easily be found between 200 to 300 euros if you live outside the city center and the use of public transport (BTS) is very convenient. It is also possible to find shared apartments. It is very common to find apartments and studios without a kitchen since it is convenient and cheaper to buy  food from of the many food stalls on the street for less than 2 euros a meal. Besides that many restaurants can be found that serve delicious dishes from all regions of the world. I opted to look for an apartment within walking distance from the office (downtown Bangkok) and preferred to have a kitchen. These factors have to be taken into consideration because your monthly expenses will increase and you may need some of your own savings.

Bangkok is an fantastic city to live in because it is a blend of Asian and Western traditions. There is always something to do, people are very sociable and I personally like the culture, the norms and values. Interning at UNHCR also means being introduced to a big international community, many interns and expats are working and living in Bangkok and it is easy to meet them and exchange experiences. I would recommend to save some money and plan trips and undertake activities during weekends such as exploring the city, visiting temples, going to the beach or one of the islands, visiting national parks, going out with colleagues, having drinks on one of the many rooftop bars and enjoy the stunning view over the city, or seeing a live game of ‘Muay Thai’ (a combat sport) and horse races in the heart of Bangkok.

 

 

To conclude, I am very grateful to Laura van Waas for giving me the opportunity to enhance my knowledge on statelessness, and to the other members of the Regional Office’s statelessness team, Nick Oakeshott and Bongkot Napaumporn for taking time to share experiences about statelessness related issues in South East Asia and providing elaborate feedback on my work throughout the entire internship. I have learned so much more than I initially imagined before starting the internship. I truly value this experience, that has given me so much insight into a field of study I have become so passionate about and that I couldn’t have necessarily learned in a classroom setting.

I am excited to be back in Tilburg and to complete my masters in International and Human Rights Law and I am thrilled to be interning again at the Statelessness Programme and to learn more about statelessness by interviewing stateless persons in the Netherlands.

Sangita Jaghai, Recipient of the first Statelessness Programme International Internship Award

 

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[1] UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN High Commissioner for Refugees and ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, Report of the ASEAN Regional Workshop on Statelessness and the Rights of Women and Children , 19 November 2011, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/50f674c42.html [accessed 21 October 2013].

[2] See for instance, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Regional Expert Roundtable on Good Practices for the Identification, Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and the Protection of Stateless Persons in South East Asia, 2 March 2011, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4d6e09932.html [accessed 21 October 2013].

Raising Awareness on Statelessness: Schools Project

My name is Christina van Kuijck, I’m currently studying 3 masters (Human Rights Law, Criminal Law and War Studies) and started my internship at the Statelessness Programme in September 2013. The reason why I applied for it was because I previously follow the course “Nationality, Statelessness and Human Rights”. It had such a big impact on me, that I wanted to contribute to the world in this area.

I’m an intern now for 6 weeks and each week I’m more positive I made the right choice. Besides preparing the Global Forum on Statelessness, which will be held in September 2014 in the Hague, my tasks include raising awareness on statelessness. One of the projects I’ve been busy with is the School Project for primary and secondary schools. After preparing the materials on nationality and the link with statelessness, we had the opportunity to give a lecture on the 4^th of October at the “Onze Lieve Vrouwe Lyceum” in Breda (the Netherlands) to children of the third grade (3 VWO, 14 year-olds). A researcher and another intern from the Statelessness Programme – Zahra and Sangita – accompanied me.

When I arrived there, I was very nervous. I have previously given private lessons to people between the age of 10 – 21, but never to an entire class of 30 persons. I was also a little bit afraid that the children would have difficulty following a whole class in English. I didn’t need to be afraid or nervous at all. The students were really enthusiastic and active in the lecture. When they absolutely didn’t know how to explain themselves in English, they would use Dutch.

We started the lecture by asking the students what nationality is. Though none of the students had another nationality than the Dutch one, some of them had relatives that do have another nationality. We explained them that nationality entails both identity and membership. By asking the students different questions with the nationalities they mentioned (for example Germany and Italy) they were able to understand what identity means. It was interesting to see what national stereotypes came out - one of the students stated, for instance,  that "Italian women are very bossy". Afterwards the students gave some examples of forms of membership – one of them raised the school as a kind of "club" that they are members of, showing that they were one step ahead of us since we wanted to ask them what their do's and don'ts  (rights and duties) were as members of the class and the school. The next question was: what if you have no nationality and what is the problem? The students immediately answered: you don't have any rights and any duties. This paved the way to move on to the next question: the explanation of statelessness.

Zahra took over from here: She showed a video of stateless persons and the students were very interested in what they saw. Zahra asked the students whether they knew how they acquired nationality, and all of them gave the correct answers: the land bond through birth or naturalisation, and the blood bond through relatives or marriage. I was also impressed at how the students intuitively suggested that a foundling should acquire nationality by one way or the other, for example by giving a foundling the nationality where he was born, or found, or the nationality of his (adoptive) parents. After explaining naturalisation, most of the students stated that they would want another nationality because it would be easier for them in the future to find jobs (and because according to them, the Netherlands is too cold and small for them). Zahra then arrived at the loss of nationality, by offeringdifferent real -life examples.

Sangita took over to explain the regulation of nationality in the Netherlands and talked about an article in the newspaper of a stateless person in their own country. The students were quite shocked that this also happens in their own country. Finally, Zahra showed the international regulations and explained two cases of statelessness – the Rohingya in Myanmar and Bidoon in Kuwait.  

The students showed a lot of concern towards the problem and understood everything correctly. The teacher, Jos van Schilt, was very enthusiastic and gave us some positive feedback and has offered to help with the materials and different exercises for the School Project.

It was a very positive experience for me, soon we will be able to teach upper secondary classes and compare the materials that we have used and the way students respond to the topic. Currently I’m working with Jos van Schilt on a paper about nationality and statelessness education as one of the responses to statelessness. I hope to raise awareness all over the world with the School Project, and finish the materials before the end of the year in three languages (English, Spanish and Dutch). I’m very happy with this internship, as it gives me an opportunity to explore the law in a different way, not only by receiving education, but also by giving it to others.

Christina van Kuijck – intern at the Statelessness Programme

Introducing… Ivan Kochovski, intern assisting with research on nationality and statelessness in the MENA region

As I have been a part of the Statelessness Programme for a couple of months now, it is time to introduce myself and the work I have been doing at the Programme. My name is Ivan Kochovski and I am a LLM candidate at Tilburg University following the International and European Public Law programme with a specialisation in International Law and Human Rights. As of October 2012 I am an intern at the Statelessness Programme working on the “Nationality and Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa Project” (MENA Project).

Supervised by both Dr. Van Waas and Ms. Albarazi, I am working on compiling fact-sheets on the situation of statelessness and nationality in each of the MENA countries using country reports prepared by local experts. Recently, I have also been working on a report examining the manner in which the issue of gender discrimination in terms of nationality has been dealt with for the MENA countries at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) - the first universal review process examining all human rights questions in every UN country.

Statelessness is not an easy topic to get involved with. This is not to say that it is extremely difficult, but it is challenging nevertheless. While discussing some of the misconceptions I had about statelessness with my supervisors and colleagues and working on the MENA region, I realized that statelessness is not simply a problem of badly drafted nationality laws or inaccessible nationality procedures that rendered certain people without a nationality. Some of its main causes lie deeply rooted in the past and present political power relations within the countries and the region. The Bidoon in the Gulf Region, the Kurds in Syria, and the Palestinians in the Levant are just some of the groups that have been left stateless due to specific political reasons. This does not mean that the nationality laws of the MENA countries are not deeply problematic or that there aren’t issues with the procedures, but rather that the causes of statelessness are a combination of both legislative and political factors.

For instance, Jordan has a gendered nationality law and does not allow women to transfer their nationality to their children or spouses. Even though such discriminatory legislation can be seen as a purely legal matter, the issue becomes more complex with the fact that there are many Jordanian women married to non-nationals and the country is host to a large stateless Palestinian population. One of the reasons the Jordanian leadership has been reluctant to amend the nationality law, to allow women to pass on their nationality, has been the fear that allowing such a large number of non-nationals to acquire citizenship will create a shift in the demographics and the political constituency, possibly leading to unforeseeable political turmoil. Leaving aside politics for a moment, one must not forget the predicament of the stateless. The recent research of Ms. Albarazi in Jordan showed that many of the stateless in Jordan live in conditions of extreme poverty with no access to healthcare and with no prospects of meaningful education or employment. The discriminatory provisions do not create only problems for the women and their spouses, but perhaps most worryingly for their children. Some of the interviewed women have indicated that their children have no future. The only way out of that situation for the girls is to marry a national and acquire his citizenship. The boys, who have no such possibility of regularizing their status, often drift between illegal jobs and are strongly discouraged by their parents from marrying or having children because that will create only further problems as they will not be able to provide for their family and will transfer the same predicament to the future generations.

Going back to the influence of politics on the issue of statelessness, perhaps the most prominent example in recent years of how nationality can be used as a strong political tool is the 2011 decree issued by Al-Asad’s government allowing a portion of the stateless Syrian Kurds to acquire citizenship. In the 1960’s as part of its Arabization policies the Baath government denationalized more than 20 percent of the Kurdish population. After the civil war broke out in early 2011, the government, in order to gain the support of the Kurdish population adopted a decree that would allow more than half of the 300 000 stateless Kurds to acquire a citizenship. Even though there is limited information on whether this procedure has been implemented and perhaps statelessness is not the top priority in Syria at the moment taking into account the heinous atrocities being committed there, the 2011 decree is one of the clearest examples of how nationality can and is being used for political gains by governments. Syria’s nationality laws are also discriminatory towards women and there are reportedly more than 100,000 women married to non-nationals. As was the case with Jordan, one can see that the issue here is not purely political or purely legal. The Syrian government has also feared that granting more than 100,000 men married to Syrian women and their children nationality might cause a shift in the political dynamics of the state. As in Jordan, the stateless in Syria have lived in dire conditions for years and since the escalation of the violence the situation has grown worse.

There are many more such examples both from the MENA region and other regions in the world. The Nubians in Kenya, the non-citizens in Latvia, the Roma in the Balkans, the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Haitians in the Dominican Republic are just some of the groups in other parts of the world whose condition has been created due to both political and legal factors and continues to be detrimental due to both political reluctance to solve the issue and a lack of appropriate legal and humanitarian protection.

But what does this all mean in terms of solving the issue? Where do we find a solution? Do we look for a single solution or do we search for solutions in all aspects of the problem that would require more time? Given the limited resources, should one focus on the humanitarian side of the issue by trying to eliminate the extreme poverty and dire living conditions rampant among these populations or focus on pressuring states to live up to their human rights obligations and provide protection for these groups? Should short term goals, such as providing immediate humanitarian assistance, or long term goals, such as pressuring states to adopt legislation that would provide safeguards against statelessness, be a priority? Should the focus be on reminding the international community of its responsibility towards protecting stateless individuals? Or maybe even lobbing for the adoption of more effective measures in dealing with statelessness on the international legal and political level?

I do not have the answers to all of these questions. However I do think that in order to deal with the problem effectively the focus should be placed on all factors rather than just one. Even though this might sound too optimistic, the complex nature of the issue of statelessness necessitates a more comprehensive approach that would deal with the various factors on the local, national and international level. Exploring some of these specific factors and possible solutions to statelessness would require a different blog post or a more elaborate study. Nevertheless, by working on the MENA region both through the fact sheets and the report on how the UPR procedure has death with the issue of gender discrimination and nationality I continue to discover and grow to understand the specific aspects of the issue of statelessness in the MENA.

Ivan Kochovski, Statelessness Programme intern

Introducing … Zhasmina Kostadinova, intern working on statelessness awareness raising

Zhasmina joined the Statelessness Programme in February 2013,as an intern for a 6-month project to develop new outreach tools on statelessness. In the interview below, she introduces herself and talks about what she has been learning and what she hopes to achieve thorough the internship.

Please start by telling us a bit about yourself.

My name is Zhasmina Kostadinova, I am from Bulgaria. I am a first-year student of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Tilburg University.

What made you interested in an internship at the Statelessness Programme?

My studies are organized in such a way that at the end of the first year I have to choose a major, i.e. in which field I will continue my work. I was searching for an activity with which I will guide my mind and make this decision. At that moment, I saw the free intern positions at the Statelessness Programme. I started reading about the issue, and as I found it to be the perfect combination of Law and Social Sciences, I applied for the programme.

In this way, in February 2013 I joined the Statelessness Programme as an intern to help with raising awareness on Statelessness. My internship project is 6 months long and until now I feel extremely thankful, for the opportunity to contribute to the Programme and to realize my dreams and plans.  One of the greatest benefits of working with the Statelessness Programme is doing real tasks, while participating in a professional international team. I am having the enormous pleasure to learn constantly by interaction.

As you are starting to learn more about statelessness, what do you find most interesting and why?

With my first day in the Statelessness Programme I was surprised to realize in what great detail Nationality is needed for every person. While preparing for my first steps with the team I was searching for information about Statelessness and Nationality, on the internet, which will broaden my knowledge of this topic. Unfortunately, I could not find one single web-site that could combine the issues of Nationality and Statelessness at one place, together with examples and theory.

Very important for the development of my understanding and knowledge of the topic of statelessness, were a lecture about Statelessness by Jason Tucker and conversations with Laura van Waas. During the lecture, Mr. Tucker drawn a simple circle with the typical rights and duties that we have together with our nationality, and then he started to cross out all the things that a statelessness person doesn’t possess. This, so simple picture, touched me at that very moment. I had thought that the information on the Internet was enough and provides basic knowledge, but I could not find such a strong and at the same time simple explanation of how statelessness affects people.

Moreover, during my training by Mrs. Van Waas, I learned about the nationality laws of different countries and how the way in which states regulate nationality can lead to statelessness. In the beginning I was deeply indignant of the discrimination of some Muslim countries, where a woman married to a foreign man, cannot pass her nationality to her children.

Can you tell us a bit about what you are working on as your internship project?

As an intern at the Statelessness Programme, I am creating a “duo” website about Nationality and Statelessness. I am working with Web-expression 4 and HTML 5 for the creation of a simple, but interactive and creative website. The aim is to make the awareness of the statelessness issue more accessible to people of all ages and especially, to catch the attention to the young people. 

Young people, who are still studying in schools, are a very important target because children learn quickly and make the change they want to see in other people. We believe that with more people informed about the problems faced by stateless people, this can make a difference over time.

Awareness leads people not only to sympathize the Stateless people, but to realize how much we have taken for granted the nationality that we have. People do not think about their nationality or when they need it for something and it is difficult to realize how important it is, actually. With simple examples, videos and an interactive design the website will combine the issues of Statelessness and Nationality with the idea of a better society, through better awareness.

What are your impressions of the Statelessness Programme so far and what do you hope to learn during the rest of your internship?

Until now I think that this internship is the most interesting challenge I have ever faced. I feel really happy and thankful to the whole team, which is very supportive, has a broad knowledge of the topic and is very creative. I hope the website will arise more awareness on statelessness and will change the attitudes of more people, which may help for the improving of the laws and better addressing the statelessness issue.

Zhasmina Kostadinova, Statelessness Programme intern

Introducing... Linda Peels, intern supporting the organisation of the First Global Forum on Statelessness

Ms Linda Peels, 22 years old, Dutch

Studying: International and European Law, Bachelor Programme

Internship Project: Organisational support for the “First Global Forum on Statelessness” in September 2014, co-hosted by UNHCR and the Statelessness Programme.

Last year I attended a pub lecture on statelessness, given by Laura van Waas. I had never heard of this topic before, but after Laura’s lecture I immediately wanted to learn more about this phenomenon, in particular how it could possibly happen that someone did not have a nationality. I was thrilled when I saw that The Statelessness Programme was looking for an intern.

My internship focusses mainly on the organisational part of the 2014 Global Forum. When I first started, I have to admit I was a bit in doubt whether I would actually learn a lot about the academic side of statelessness, since this is not the main focus of my internship. So alongside my internship,  I also enrolled for the course “Nationality, Statelessness and Human Rights”, created by the Statelessness Programme.

However, my doubt turned out to be for nothing: from my first day on, I had – and still have-  to write so many people and explain to them what statelessness is and why this conference is so important, that I was forced to look into the topic and the definition to deepen my knowledge. Many questions arose, differing from very practical, such as how many NGOs are actually working on statelessness – not that many by the way- , to very academic, for instance how we should interpret the definition of statelessness given in art 1 of the 1954 UN Convention Relating to The Status of Stateless Persons, or how safeguards should be implemented in nationality laws to prevent statelessness.

For these questions, the combination of studying the topic during class and working on the topic during my internship is perfect: I get to work with both the practical obstacles and questions as well as the academic side of statelessness, which really helps me to understand this complex phenomenon and to explain what it is in a way that non-academics will understand it too. I found the answers to my questions, not only in literature during class, but also by working on the topic during my internship.

To give you an idea of what organising of such an extraordinary event implies, I will elaborate a bit more on what I am currently working on. The idea is to hold a conference for both academics and policy makers. On this point, we are trying to map NGOs who are working on the topic, we are looking for academics as key note speakers and we are mapping governments that have done a lot to prevent statelessness, for instance Indonesia, who has changed their nationality law and built in more safeguards to prevent statelessness. We hope to attract some 300 academics, governments representatives, key UN staff, NGO’s or legal practitioners working on human rights, refugees and stateless people with various international backgrounds. We have to make sure we keep a balance between policy developers and academics, since the hoped outcome of the conference implies both encouraging new research on statelessness and the development of better nationality laws or other policies, for instance giving stateless people access to Micro Finance Intuitions – see Jason’s latest blog post.

The conference aims to raise the profile of statelessness by giving academics and governments representatives the opportunity to share their research, experiences and achievements in tackling the issue. We also hope to provide a podium for the stateless and to give them a voice.

Since I first started I have met such wonderful people who are always willing to answer my questions. I have already learned a lot about the topic of statelessness, the mandate of the UNHCR and the people working on statelessness, and I still have more than a year left full of learning and experiences!

Linda Peels, intern with the Statelessness Programme

Statelessness Programme 2012 international internship winner: "looking ahead to 6 months in Bangkok"

The Statelessness Programme's first ever International Statelessness Internship Award recipient is the very bright, motivated and sociable Sangita Jaghai. After nearly a year of interning with the Statelessness Programme in Tilburg, she is now about to embark on her international  internship - sponsored by the Statelessness Programme - in Bangkok. In this first blog post, she looks ahead to what she is expecting of the experience over the coming 6 months...

 

How the location and organization was selected

6 months ago,  Laura van Waas (manager & founder of the Statelessness Programme) made enquiries with Mark Manly, the Head of the Statelessness Unit at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva about the possibility of hosting an intern at a UNHCR office for 6 months. UNHCR recommended an internship at the regional hub in Bangkok because the magnitude of the issue within the region and a great team working on statelessness at the Regional Coordinator’s Office would offer a good learning environment for an intern.

 

Laura consulted me about this option, she was very positive about an internship at the regional office in Bangkok but mentioned that it was also possible to look into other placements if I wanted to. I preferred to fulfill my internship in Thailand and UNHCR gave its approval for an internship period  as of 4 March until 16 August 2013.

What I expect to be doing during the internship

Under supervision of the Regional Protection Officer (Statelessness) I, firstly, expect to focus on developing a methodology which 1) compares citizenship laws of ASEAN member states against international standards related to the prevention and reduction of statelessness and 2) can identify conflicts or gaps in citizenship law that will arise in the context of migration between ASEAN member states, as well as through marriage between citizens of different member states. Secondly, I expect also to concentrate on good practices that exist in the region as regards reforming nationality law, regulations or implementation to reduce and prevent statelessness. Findings of this research have to be written down in a report.

If sufficient time remains, materials for future internal and external UNHCR training on the prevention and reduction of statelessness through nationality law reform and implementation will be produced or reviewed.  My duties and responsibilities are very well explained in the TORs.

What I hope to offer the host organization and learn from the experience

I am hoping to put into practice knowledge that I have gained during my internship at the Statelessness Programme.  My internship project  in Tilburg mainly focused on statelessness in the Dutch legal context and plenty of opportunities were given to learn more on statelessness in the international legal context as well. For instance, I took the course on nationality, statelessness and human rights. The legal analysis classes that were given back then will now be of good help during my internship.

Besides that, I participated in a summer course on statelessness held at Tilburg University. It was very informative because researchers, experts, and people working in the fields from all over the world gathered for one week and shared their experiences working on statelessness.

To conclude, what I would like to learn from the experience here in Bangkok is to better understand the legal context of statelessness  in South East Asia and the challenges that are being  faced within region. Seeing how UNHCR performs its mandate to prevent and reduce statelessness in practice  is a learning experience on itself already. Looking at my internship project, I hope to learn how to develop a decent methodology to assess nationality laws of the ASEAN member states and analyze nationality laws efficiently. I also wish to be guided  throughout the process of writing a clear and comprehensive  analysis report based on the findings. It would also be amazing to learn more on how teaching material is being developed for training sessions on statelessness.

Sangita Jaghai, International Statelessness Internship Award recipient 2012