We Belong; protection, citizenship and economic empowerment for stateless youth in Thailand SUMMARY
Chiang Mai province has the highest number of stateless people in Thailand, representing ethnic minorities and conflict-affected migrants who settled in Thailand generations ago. The Ministry of Education recognizes stateless children and youth as G-coded students under the Education for All policy. In Chiang Mai, there are 17,423 G-coded students, of which 7,319 reside in the four project districts. Although they are entitled to access education, they are restricted from traveling out of their province, are not covered under the National Health Insurance policy and they are not permitted to work. These factors foster poverty and increase their vulnerability to exploitation. The project works with eight  youth led community-based organisations to improve child protection, rights, citizenship and youth economic empowerment. The project will strengthen a network of provincial-level stakeholders to facilitate the case approval process. The project is implemented from 2020 to 2024. Although the government has its positive attempts, challenges to protect stateless children and youth remain unsolved, mainly due to the lack of inter-ministerial collaboration that would provide sufficient financial and human resources for authorities at a local level to process the applications. Moreover, language barriers and a lack of access to knowledge hinder stateless children and youth to go through the citizenship application.

Thailand ratified the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) in 1992 and thus the ‘Education for All’ policy has been implemented. Currently, stateless children and youths are recognized by the Ministry of Education (MoE) as G-coded students, which grants them the right to use the Thai educational system but without the 13-digit identification number granted by the Ministry of Interior (MoI). The 13-digit Thai ID number provides the possibility to gain an official legal status. However, there are challenges in the application process. 

Firstly, there is no link between the registration system and database of stateless children connecting the MoE and MoI and allowing for smooth data management. Currently, the Ministry of Education has the database of all G-coded students; however, the responsibilities fall overwhelmingly onto teachers to prepare documents for the application, without sufficient training to do so. This implies a delay in transferring the database from MoE to MoI in order to process the application. 

Secondly, the process is complicated as stateless children have to submit their legal status applications to the Registration Office at District or Provincial level under MoI without a practical guideline that is comprehensible for applicants and local-level implementers. 

Thirdly, the approval/granting of legal status is a long process that lacks sufficient transparency from those involved. It was reported that many stateless people had to wait at least ten years to be granted citizenship . Furthermore, during the process, many face obstacles due to corruption among local officials and discrimination due to their ethnic identity.

As a result many children and youth still lack a legal status and stateless children and youth are only recognized in the education system as G-coded students, meaning that they can access basic education under the ‘Education for All’ policy, receiving a specific registration card from their school with a “G” denomination. Although they are entitled to access education, they are restricted from traveling out of their hometown provinces and are not covered under the National Health Insurance. They are not permitted to work, which pushes them into poverty and increases their vulnerability to exploitation. Some of the traditional beliefs among ethnic minorities in Thailand also contribute to the vulnerability to CSEC among girls and young women. Daughters are expected to take care of their parents and help them financially and with work in some communities6.. This drives some to  illegally migrate to other provinces or even other countries through unregistered brokers for jobs. Many young girls are trafficked for sex and are exploited7. Boys and young men without a legal status are similarly  vulnerable to exploitation due to the lack of opportunities and protection. However, there has been limited research as stateless children and youth are not recognized in the system and Thailand lacks data collection systems on CSEC that would demonstrate the disaggregated profiles of children victims . The goal of the project is that stateless children and youth are protected from CSEC and exploitation through a participatory multi stakeholder collaboration model which addresses their legal status in Thailand and challenges related to social, economic, political and gender inequality. 
An important step and condition is that youth-based and gender-transformative CBOs are formed and capacitated and can collaborate with actors from different sectors to advocate for the right of stateless children and youths to social and economic security, including gender equality. 
Meanwhile a network of provincial-level stakeholders will be strengthened and will have the capacity to facilitate the process for case approval for stateless children and youths.  Through advocacy, including youth advocacy, and technical support, inter-ministerial policies and practices for stateless children and youth will improved and aligned at national, provincial and local level to enable stateless children and youths to access their rights and government services.  
The project will promote good governance, transparency and accountability of authorities as concerned the unregistered Stateless children and youth, through participatory processes whereas youth led CBOs will be working jointly with LAs to solve the registration issue, under the guidance of PI and EPDF. The project complements PI’s Legal Status and Citizenship Project (2017-2020) by which 15,165 stateless people (51.4% female) will be supported to register for legal status. It also builds up on the momentum developed by SIDA-funded Building Strong Civil Society Organizations and Networking for Sustainable Development project (2015-2019), which has developed a network of organizations in Thailand working towards child protection in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in which EPDF takes leadership in the Stateless Children thematic working group. It further links to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs funded Down to Zero programme, implemented by Terre des Hommes, ECPAT and Free a Girl, aiming at reducing CSEC in Asia.
The organisation  Ethnic Peoples’ Development Foundation (EPDF) has partnered with Plan International Thailand for 8 years on various issues including universal birth registration (UBR), legal status and citizenship, rights, IGA, child protection. They are part of a number of networks including Legal Status Network, a CSO group of 33 NGOs advocating for stateless population, and Thailand’s Child Rights Coalition, in which EPDF takes a lead role in the UBR working group. 
At national level, the Ministries, namely MoE, MoPH, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security and MoI through BORA, are responsible for policy development and inter-ministerial policy alignment to resolve legal status for unregistered population and child protection in general. 
Through a number of successive projects on Universal Birth Registration (UBR), Plan International (PI) has directly encountered cases of stateless girls forced to enter CSEC as well as labour exploitation in Chiang Mai, occasionally by their parents who, due to their lack of legal status, have been trapped in poverty and lack access to decent work. A number of studies reviewed, especially an economic research on equality point out how stateless people risk labour exploitation and urges strict law enforcement particularly on child labour and youth employment under 18 year old . Children and youth without legal status do not exist in the registration system and cannot depend on the justice system to provide them with protection against CSEC. The subject is persistent and solutions are mostly piecemeal. Although the government has its positive attempts, challenges to protect stateless children and youth remain unsolved, mainly due to the lack of inter-ministerial collaboration that would provide sufficient financial and human resources for authorities at a local level to process the applications. Moreover, language barriers and a lack of access to knowledge hinder stateless children and youth to go through the citizenship application. In five years, at least 78,897 stateless youth and children (with G-coding) throughout Thailand, including 7,319 stateless youth and children in the targeted communities will benefit from this project. 
All youth (18-24) and children (7-17) in 8 communities in 4 districts in Chiang Mai with high density of stateless population and vulnerability to CSEC, will be targeted, although with specific focus on stateless children and youth. Specifically the locations are: 
●	Chiang Dao District: Tambon Muang Na (Municipality) and Chiang Dao
●	Chaiprakarn District: Sri Dong Yen 
●	Fang District: Tambon Monpin, Wieng 
●	Mae Ai District: Doi Laang 
In each of the 8 communities, one youth-led gender-transformative CBO will be formed with 15 interested youths and will comprise of three working groups, namely Rights and Citizenship, Gender Responsive Child Protection, and Youth Economic Empowerment. Teachers and directors of 164 schools will assist the district registrar office in screening the list of G-coded students and identifying the status they are entitled to. The project works with the following outcomes:

Outcome 1: Youth-based and gender-transformative CBOs are formed and capacitated and can collaborate with actors from different sectors to advocate for the right of stateless children and youths to  social and economic security, including gender equality.
Outcome 2: A strengthened network of provincial-level stakeholders has the capacity to facilitate the process for case approval for stateless children and youths.  
Outcome 3: Inter-ministerial policies and practices for stateless children and youth are improved and aligned at national, provincial and local level to enable stateless children and youths to access their rights and government services.  

At the impact level, PI attaches importance to registering Stateless children and youths to have legal status in order to enable their protection as a person by Thai laws. Through our interventions, stateless children and youth will be able to bring up issues pertaining to their situation to key stakeholders at community level as well as drive for advocacy change. They will also work toward improved  social and economic security by being capacitated and determining and leading their own activities for empowerment. 
Under Outcome 1, in each of the targeted communities, a youth-led gender-responsive CBO will be formed and trained  in areas related to (1) Rights and Citizenship, which will be the core team for citizenship application: they will also learn about related policies and assist the schools for outreach clinics, (2) Child Protection, which will play a key role in establishing gender-transformative community-based child protection mechanisms and promoting gender equality, and (3) Youth Economic Empowerment, which will see the development of business plans, including a focus on  sustainable tourism for those communities interested and able to pursue community based tourism. The business plans will be implemented  locally promoting the  economic empowerment of youth in the community. They will work together with community members, schools, and local authorities to address their socio-economic vulnerabilities and gender barriers. They will learn and gain experience in mobilizing resources for their own activities through developing proposals for a sub-granting mechanism which will increase their ownership and the project’s sustainability. Moreover, these youth leaders will conduct a gender-transformative participatory action research on the issues of stateless children and youth. This research will be further used as their advocacy tool.
Under Outcome 2, PI will adapt a successful multi stakeholder collaboration model from Mae Hong Son Province and pilot an improved approach to resolve the legal status on a timely and collaborative manner, with involvement from CSOs and schools. A guideline on processing legal status will be developed and disseminated to local schools and registrar offices. Moreover, we will build the capacity of teachers from 164 schools in targeted areas in order to ensure that they will be able to support the students. Outreach clinics will be conducted in the schools with collaboration from the local registrar’s office and support from CBOs.
PI, as an active partner of the Thai government authorities at different levels on UBR and statelessness (including membership of the Inter-ministerial sub-committee that has been commissioned to coordinate and monitor policy implementation regarding legal status of persons within education institutes), along with CSO stakeholders will influence for improved inter-ministerial policies and practices (including addressing the barriers to apply for citizenship, rights to healthcare and travel) for stateless children and youth under Outcome 3. Additionally, a cost-benefit analysis research on promoting rights for stateless people to advocate with the government and our local intervention on solving stateless issues will be the evidence that support for policy change.  
The project will promote good governance, transparency and accountability of authorities as concerned the unregistered Stateless children and youth, through participatory processes whereas youth led CBOs will be working jointly with LAs to solve the registration issue, under the guidance of PI and EPDF. Financial sustainability The 8 CBOs will be trained and mentored to access funding from local agencies, which will enable them to continue implementing their small scale initiatives post project period. They will be linked to networks of CSOs, providing them with opportunities for continued peer support, e.g. to run campaigns. The poverty reduction activities in particular will undergo the initiation phase of production and/or marketing within the project period and will start generating a positive income and savings for financial sustainability. 

Institutional sustainability The project puts a strong emphasis on the institutional structure of independent CBOs. The training of local stakeholders will also ensure that capacity building gains are retained within Chiang Mai province. Empowered CBO/CSOs will remain in place after the project phases out, enabling to provide continuous space for dialogue and keep the debate open between LAs and civil society. After benefiting from capacity building activities, the aim is for CSOs to come up with their own initiatives while deepening their sense of ownership. The project uses lobby meetings as well as the multiple forums to establish connections between CBOs and LAs. CBOs’ ability to access local funds will enhance the sustainability of their approach and they will have the experience in managing their own funds during the project to gain confidence and hands-on skills. Guideline on stateless issues will be developed, disseminated and used in training school staff, which will equip them with both the tool and knowledge.
 
Policy level sustainability By the end of the project, it is expected that at least two new national policies and three ministerial orders that are beneficial to fulfilling the rights of ethnic minorities and G-coded students in particular, will be adopted. The project works towards building the recognition of CSOs’ and schools’ capacity in the official implementation of the Citizen Registration Act, and formalising collaboration between CSOs, schools and LAs. The project will secure sustainability through its participatory lobby work while ensuring that all stakeholders understand that good governance is a government approach and its implementation through working alongside civil society will be recognized as good practice.

Community level sustainability The CBOs will become champions of change for gender equality and conduct activities to challenge gender norms in their communities. Moreover, a gender-transformative community-based child protection mechanism will be established in the communities. By empowering children and youth, especially girls and young women, to become economically independent, they will be equipped with high self-esteem and skills. These approaches will shape the community values and attitudes towards children and youth, gender norms, and gender roles.