GUEST POST: Between Ballot Papers and Birth Certificates: Cambodia’s Vietnamese Minority still Looking for its Place in Society

Cambodia’s national parliamentary election in July 2013 saw much debate about the place of the country’s ethnic Vietnamese minority. Whilst the contemporary politicized discourse focuses primarily on who should have a right to vote, few address the underlying question of the social and legal status of this minority group in Cambodia. The ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia is one of, if not the largest, minority group in the country. Despite this, the ethnic Vietnamese population in Cambodia remains understudied. Whilst many ethnic Vietnamese have Cambodian identification documents and have successfully integrated into society, others continue to live at the margins of society and face difficulties substantiating their legal status in Cambodia.

 

Any discussion about this group needs to start with a proper differentiation, as "The Vietnamese" in Cambodia are not comprised of one single group, but comprise multifaceted and diverse sub-groups of individuals. Such sub-groups include Cambodian citizens of Vietnamese origin; ethnic Vietnamese in mixed marriages with Khmer spouses; long-term residents of Cambodia (some of whom have resided in Cambodia during or before French colonial times); and more recent immigrants seeking economic opportunities.

 

One of the most vulnerable groups is Cambodia’s long-term ethnic Vietnamese minority. In an attempt to shed light into the circumstances of this specific group, a recent report – “A Boat Without Anchors” – assessed the legal status of a focal group from Kampong Chhnang province around the Tonle Sap Lake. The report explores the status of the focal group under the applicable Cambodian and Vietnamese nationality laws, examines available documentation among the group and considers how the national authorities of Cambodia and Vietnam view and treat the group under the operation of their respective laws.

 

Some communities belonging to this focal group have resided for many generations in Cambodia, and many individuals have acquired Cambodian citizenship under previous or current nationality laws. However, the minority group has frequently suffered under the often-times contentious bilateral relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam, and discrimination and exclusion  in Cambodia has complicated their integration into society. At its extreme, the group suffered under the genocidal campaign of the Khmer Rouge regime, aimed at exterminating the group from Cambodia.  For this, accused persons at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal have been charged with the crime of genocide against the Vietnamese. For survivors who resided in Cambodia for generations, survival resulted from their deportation to Vietnam in 1975. Upon their return during the 1980s, most were treated as “immigrants” or “foreign residents”. As a consequence, many have neither proof of Cambodian nor Vietnamese nationality. These persons may in fact be stateless.

 

Without citizenship and other documentation, the specific ethnic Vietnamese in this research do not have access to many basic economic, political, and social rights. They face an array of legal, political, economic and social disadvantages, including difficulty accessing employment, education, health care, legal protection, limited freedom of movement, and an inability to open a bank account or own land. Few development activities have taken place in these communities. Expanding much needed services, in particular in the education and health sectors, to cover these and other communities would contribute to integrating them into Cambodian society and upholding their basic rights.

 

Importantly, the report found that these Vietnamese communities, by and large, have no effective access to birth registration. According to Cambodian law, birth registration is not linked to nationality and is available to all children born on Cambodian territory.  The absence of birth registration documentation for children in the focal group communities creates barriers for obtaining other documents relevant to exercising future rights and entitlements such as admission to school and access to Cambodian nationality, in accordance with the Cambodian nationality law. In order to ensure that statelessness does not perpetuate through generations within the Vietnamese minority populations in Cambodia, there is a need to expand universal birth registration to the children of these communities. The commendable efforts undertaken in past years by the responsible entities under the Cambodian Ministry of Interior, often with support from UNICEF, should be continued and expanded, including awareness-raising among affected population and local authorities.

A careful balance needs to be struck, which respects the right of the Cambodia state to regulate immigration, and the rights of long-term residents in accordance with Cambodia’s national law and international human rights standards. To achieve this balance, authorities need to distinguish between individuals who have resided for many generations in Cambodia and more recent immigrants. Cambodian laws should apply equally to everybody – both mainstream Cambodians and members of the ethnic Vietnamese minority in Cambodia.  As rights and obligations go hand in hand, this can provide a more sustainable basis for integration.

 

 

Christoph Sperfeldt and Lyma Nguyen, authors of JRS Cambodia’s publication “A boat without anchors”

 

 

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

UNHCR Statelessness Research Award interviews... Amanda Cheong

In this series of blog posts, we will be asking the students honoured in this year's UNHCR Award for Statelessness Research about their experiences studying the phenomenon on statelessness and their research findings. Last in the series is Ms Amanda Cheong, whose B.A. Honours thesis entitled "Changing Conceptions of Citizenship Among Stateless Chinese-Bruneian Immigrants in Vancouver", written at the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia (Canada), was chosen by the Jury as the Best Research in the Undergraduate Category.

      1.       Could you summarise, in 2 or 3 sentences, what your research was about?

My project had two main goals:

     1)      To depict statelessness as an embodied, lived experience by providing a descriptive account of the material and emotional repercussions faced by stateless Chinese-Bruneians;

     2)      To demonstrate how Brunei’s and Canada’s citizenship policies differentially mediated the nature of stateless Chinese-Bruneian immigrants’ ideas of citizenship and their relationships to the state.

      2.       What first got you interested in the problem of statelessness?

It wasn’t until the springtime before the final year of my undergraduate degree when I discovered that my parents had grown up without citizenship in the country in which they were born.  They mentioned this fact offhandedly when we were shopping for snacks one evening in an Asian wholesale grocery store. I pressed them further and asked, “So if you didn’t have citizenship, what did your passport say under ‘nationality’?” My mother replied matter-of-factly, “Stateless.” This moment marked a paradigm shift in the way I understood citizenship, as I could no longer took for granted the assumption that everyone automatically legally belonged somewhere. Thus, my professional commitment to the issue of statelessness arose out of deeply personal origins.

      3.       Why did you choose this particular research topic?

Ever since I learned about my family’s stateless history, I became both surprised at how little research has been conducted on statelessness to date, and fascinated about its human, subjective dimensions. What is being stateless like on an everyday basis? How do stateless people make sense of ideas of national identity and belonging?

There had been no prior attempts to systematically document the lives of the stateless Chinese in Brunei. The struggles of this particular population have been so chronically ignored that many of my interview respondents themselves questioned why I decided to pick Chinese-Bruneians, out of all the different cases that exist.  So I decided to study this population to not only make an academic contribution to the body of literature on statelessness, but also to demonstrate that the worth of no individual—regardless of how marginalized, forgotten or invisible—should be discounted.

      4.       Could you briefly describe how you went about your research? E.g. did you base it on existing sources – and were they easy to find? Did you do fieldwork or interviews – and what was that like?

I conducted oral history interviews with formerly stateless Chinese-Bruneian immigrants living in the Greater Vancouver Area. It was a challenging but gratifying experience, and I hope that the respondents also got something out of sharing their lives and histories with me.

      5.       What was the greatest challenge you had to deal with in undertaking your research?

My biggest challenge was reconciling my multiple identities and biases as researcher, activist, and daughter of formerly stateless immigrants.

      6.       Could you briefly summarise your main findings or conclusions – or what you think is the most important outcome of your research?

I found that while Brunei’s racialized citizenship policies restricted its stateless population to a predominantly instrumental understanding of citizenship as related to material entitlements, Canada’s more inclusionary model fostered a greater orientation towards symbolic notions of freedom, democratic participation, and civic engagement.

In addition to initiating the research and documentation of this little-known population, I also shed light upon the importance of citizenship policies in influencing how individuals conceive of themselves as civic beings and contribute to the political life of a nation, and how such ideas have the potential to shift through the migration process.

      7.       Have you found it rewarding to research statelessness – why / why not?

Definitely, and I am determined to continue working in this newly emerging field. My goal as an aspiring sociologist is to give a human face to the global crisis of statelessness, and to use scholarly inquiry to effect change at both community and policy levels.

      8.       What tips would you give to students who are getting involved in statelessness research to help them? E.g. are there particular questions you think they should be looking at or methodological issues they should consider?

I don’t know if I have any tips to share, as I am still a student who is learning more about statelessness, and trying to equip myself with the theoretical and methodological tools to study populations who legally do not exist. One thing I would say is that it is important to remember that, at the end of the day, statelessness is a fundamentally human issue that affects the everyday lives of real individuals, and to approach your research with an open and compassionate mind.

**

I wish to acknowledge my mother and father, formerly stateless immigrants now living in Canada, who inspire me every single day with their strength and perseverance in the face of impossible adversity. 

Amanda's research interests concern collective action and rights claims among stateless peoples, as well as related issues of migration, race/ethnicity, and nation-building. In September 2012, she began a research and documentary film project with Voice of the Children (www.voc.org.my), a child rights legal advocacy organization in Malaysia. Through fieldwork in urban and rural contexts, she explored how racialized discourses surrounding Malaysian nationality contribute to the legal and social marginalization of undocumented and stateless children in Sabah. Amanda is now a PhD student in Sociology and Social Policy at Princeton University. She can be reached at archeong@princeton.edu.

Photo Competition: (my) nationality

This year is the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted on 10 December 1948, this document proclaims that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. It elaborates rights for every individual in the world, whatever their nationality.

But nationality is still important: it gives a person a sense of belonging and plays an important part in enabling people to exercise rights. Just imagine what life would be like without a country, without a passport. For the more than 10 million stateless people around the world, despite the aspirations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, life is still very hard.

In order to raise awareness of the global problem of statelessness, the Statelessness Programme and Awake International are organising the photo competition “(my) nationality”. 

Inspire us with your view on nationality. For example: What does it mean, for you, to be a national of your country? What is special about your nationality? How would you feel if you lost your nationality? The challenge is to capture your view of nationality, or your experience of your own nationality, in a single picture: one photograph.

Requirements

You can submit 1 picture by sending in your full name, your e-mail address, your age, a title for the photograph and a brief description of the image and the story behind it to photocontesthumanrightsday@gmail.com. There are no additional requirements for the format of the picture. The winner of the competition can choose between a Mediamarkt or Foregames voucher (30€ each), whereas the consolation price will be the not-chosen voucher. By sending in your picture you give automatically consent to post it on the Facebook and Blog of the Statelessness Programme

Important dates

The deadline for submissions is 5 December 2013. On the 10th of December the winner will be announced during the Human Rights Day seminar on statelessness (Dante Building, Room 1, Tilburg University, 3.00-5.00pm). Afterwards there will be an informal gathering with drinks in the Foyer of the same building.

A time for action - ENS launches campaign to protect stateless persons in Europe

As a founding member and active participant of the European Network on Statelessness, we at the Statelessness Programme are proud to be a part of the first Europe-wide civil society campaign for the protection of stateless people in Europe. Below is the blog by ENS coordinator Chris Nash, explaining the aims of this campaign [first posted on the website of ENS here].

Since its launch in June last year the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) has attracted  50 new member organisations in over 30 European countries. Encouraged by the diversity of its membership base and keen to build on recent momentum with regard to global efforts to tackle statelessness, ENS today launches a year-long campaign seeking to improve protection for stateless persons in Europe.

A public statement launching the campaign is available here and is intended to be circulated as widely as possible to help spread awareness about the campaign and what we hope to achieve.

Previous ENS blogs have reported on the impressive strides made with regard to ratification of the two UN Statelessness Conventions – for an up to date progress report by UNHCR see here. At the regional level two striking features stand out. The first is the critical agenda for concerted action provided by the European Union in October 2012 when it pledged that all its Member States not already having done so (that’s Estonia, Cyprus, Malta and Poland) would accede to the 1954 Statelessness Convention – the international instrument setting out obligations owing to stateless persons on a State Party’s territory. The second is that despite this near universal ratification, relatively so few states have in place dedicated statelessness determination procedures which are a prerequisite for them to fulfil their obligations towards stateless persons in practice (those EU states with provisions in place are France, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the UK as well as outside the EU Georgia and Moldova).

What’s surprising is that this glaring gap between notional rights owing and the possibility of attaining them in reality has continued unquestioned for so long. Many European states signed up to help stateless persons decades ago but then simply did nothing – this for example in stark contrast to their response to having ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, with regard to which almost all signatories have considered it de rigueur to adopt asylum procedures in order to be able to recognise and reward those deserving of sanctuary. The absence of an equivalent protection framework for stateless persons can have devastating consequences for those individuals stuck in limbo as a result.

Joint research conducted in 2011 by UNHCR and my organisation Asylum Aid found that previously stateless persons in the UK were left unidentified and at risk of human rights abuses. Many of the stateless persons we interviewed had been destitute for months, had been detained by immigration authorities in spite of evidence that showed there was no prospect of return, or had been separated for years from their families abroad. Some had been forced to sleep on the streets. Many had seen their accommodation and support repeatedly cancelled and reinstated. Almost all of this group were prohibited from working. Few were in a position to break this cycle. UNHCR mapping studies in Belgium and the Netherlands revealed a similar picture with the absence of adequate protection mechanisms leaving stateless migrants stuck in an endless limbo without respect for their fundamental rights. UNHCR is currently undertaking mapping studies in the Nordic and Balltic states which will hopefully also shed much needed light on the situation in those countries. As such there is a growing body of evidence about the harsh reality facing stateless persons in Europe today.

As reported more fully in a previous blog, what has changed - in the UK at least – is the introduction of new Immigration Rules effective from April this year which now provide stateless persons with a regularisation route and a crucial lifeline out of limbo. This example now needs to be followed by other European countries.

ENS has chosen today, the anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s birthday, to launch a pan-European campaign seeking to improve the protection of stateless persons in Europe. Timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Statelessness Convention, this campaign will bring together our members and other civil society organisations across Europe in calling for:

1)      All European Union states to accede to the 1954 Statelessness Convention by the end 2014.

2)      All European states without a functioning statelessness determination procedure to make a clear commitment during 2014 to take necessary steps to introduce one by the end 2016.

While not underestimating the ambitious nature of these objectives, we believe that we can make real progress towards achieving them through a combination of awareness-raising and advocacy activities at the national and European Union level. Central to this will be our efforts to put a human face on the statelessness issue by gathering individual stories and testimonies from across Europe. Equally important will be our ability to successfully engage broader popular support through online advocacy and use of social and other media. Finally, the campaign will culminate with a concerted day of action against statelessness across Europe on 14 October 2014. We are asking our members and other interested organisations to plan ahead in order to mark that day with a special event or action – for example a public meeting, film screening, photo exhibition, umbrella march, public lecture or media briefing/press release. As well as providing an important focus point for the campaign, it will hopefully also demonstrate the value of implementing ENS’s existing call for the UN General Assembly to adopt an international day of action against statelessness.  

Our campaign launch statement concludes that:

“With your support we can bring Europe’s legal ghosts out of the shadows and ensure that stateless persons are treated with the respect and dignity which has been lacking since the philosopher Hannah Arendt famously identified their plight in her seminal text The Origins of Totalitarianism back in 1951. The fact that there remain an estimated 600,000 stateless persons living in Europe today shows that action is long overdue. The time for action is now.”

Ultimately the success of this initiative will be dependent on the level of backing it receives from a broad spectrum of supporters. We hope that working together we can bring about real change. Please start by sharing details of the campaign as widely as possible.

For further information or to get involved visit www.statelessness.eu

or email ENS Coordinator Chris Nash at info@statelessness.eu