The non-existence of the Existence

In the past, people did “automatically” belong to the area they had been born in. They inherit social and economic status, craft, and “identity”. In contrary, nowadays procedures are much more complicated. People have to prove their identity by completing certain processes. With certain pieces of papers one can fulfill his/her rights, and without them they may live “invisible” for their whole life. According to the United Nations community, every person on the world has to have nationality “You have the right to belong to a country and nobody can prevent you, without a good reason, from belonging to another country if you wish” (number 15.). Also, one of the United Nations declaration of children rights is to have nationality. However, about 12 million people in the world are “stateless”, and among 5 million of them are children (Richard A., 2012).

There are many reasons contributing to this problem. The main reason is stateless parents themselves. Most countries confirm the low of “jus sanguinis” nationality regime. If the parents had nationality the children would, if they did not the children would not. In addition, most parents prefer to avoid legal birth recordation of their children in order to bypass bringing attention for their illegal situation. Moreover, small minorities on some political situations could suffer from discrimination and lack of recognition, for example the minority of Rohingya in Burma (Children’s right to a nationality, n.d.) where people are treated as stateless people.

Why is it hard to be stateless?

Problem are numerous when it comes to being stateless including lack of obtaining basic human rights (Lynch & Teff, n.d.). Education, health care, and traveling are few examples of hardships for stateless people. In more than 20 countries around the world, stateless children are not allowed to get vaccination because they do not have birth certificate or medical records. Education is unavailable or very limited for stateless children. Furthermore, they are more vulnerable for different forms of abuse and exploitation such as domestic violence, trafficking, child labor, and arbitrary arrest and detention added to two main problems of poverty and family disintegration. Children of a Kuwaiti mother and a stateless father are also stateless. However, children a divorced Kuwaiti woman can acquire citizenship, which could play an incentive factor to divorce for the sake of the children (Lynch & Teff, n.d.).

When pieces of official papers are more important than people themselves, millions are affected yet powerless to demand, ask, or speak for their rights just since governments believe they shall not exist!

 

References:

• Children’s right to a nationality. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/docs/OtherEntities/OSJIChildrenNationalityFactsheet.pdf
• Lynch, M., & Teff, M. (n.d.).Childhood statelessness. Retrieved from http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR32/31-33.pdf
• Richard, A., U.S department of state official blog, (2012). The right to a nationality: Women and children. Retrieved from website: http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2012/07/13/right-nationality-women-and-children