No Papers, No Prospects? Mapping Statelessness In the 21st Century
Channel: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
Date: 22/10/2020

Global Crisis – Global Solidarity #11
With Chris Nash, Director and Co-Founder of the European Network on Statelessness. 

The 1954 UN Statelessness Convention defines a stateless person as “someone who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”. The exact number of stateless people is not known due to limited data, but according to UNHCR, there are around 3.9 million stateless people worldwide. Their existence is not acknowledged, they are not counted in the system, they are deprived of fundamental human rights, often marginalized and discriminated against. They may not be able to attend schools or receive medical services like the rest of the population, and may not have basic civil rights like marriage, political rights like voting, or even rights as basic as applying for a job and opening a bank account.

What causes statelessness? How can stateless people be protected? And can statelessness be eradicated?