Stateless in World: 'We are no people with no nation'
At least 10 million people globally do not have citizenship of any country, according to the UN. Without nationality, stateless people cannot vote and can find it difficult or impossible to gain access to healthcare, education and employment.
In addition, because some 27 States around the world do not allow women to transfer nationality to their children, statelessness can occur where fathers are unknown, missing or deceased. Areas that have experienced large-scale displacement have also been significantly affected by statelessness.
In West Africa, the estimated stateless population in Côte d’Ivoire is 700,000, many of whom were migrants of Burkinabé descent who were not eligible for Ivorian nationality after the country’s independence from France in 1960. Statelessness due to the dissolution of former states also continues to affect many people, including some 600,000 people in Europe alone.
Related Content
Related Content
People usually acquire a nationality automatically at birth, either through their parents or the country in which they were born. Sometimes, however, a person must apply to become a national of a country.
The international legal definition of a stateless person is “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”. In simple terms, this means that a stateless person does not have a nationality of any country. Some people are born stateless, but others become stateless.
Statelessness can occur for several reasons, including discrimination against particular ethnic or religious groups, or on the basis of gender; the emergence of new States and transfers of territory between existing States; and gaps in nationality laws. Whatever the cause, statelessness has serious consequences for people in almost every country and in all regions of the world.
