NUMBER 147 • ISSUE 3 • 2007

SPECIAL REPORT The strange, hidden world of the stateless THE EDITOR’S DESK New twist to a sad tale

here are strong fears that some small true total may be closer to 15 million. island states will soon start disappearing altogether Some people end up stateless because of legislative or Tas a result of climate change. Among those consid- bureaucratic accidents – not necessarily because someone ered particularly vulnerable are Kiribati, Vanuatu, has deliberately deprived them of their national identity. the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, the Maldives and the Bahamas. Even if no state has sunk yet, millions have become stateless High tides are already destroying homes, gardens and because the state in which they or their ancestors were born fresh water supplies on Papua New Guinea’s Carteret Islands, has changed shape in some abstract way: been created or di- which may vanish completely beneath the waves as early as vided or dissolved, decolonized, conquered or freed. 2015. An evacuation of the Carterets’ 2,000 inhabitants to an- Whenever a state is modified in some such fundamental other part of Papua New Guinea has way, the issue of who is – and who is begun. not – a citizen comes to the fore. Those If low-lying island states such as who fall through the cracks during Kiribati (population 93,000) and Tu- this process often have nowhere else to valu (population 10,000) follow suit, go. Powerless to alter their situation, their problems will be much more they are often pushed by the complex than simply packing up and bureaucratic tide to the margins of moving somewhere else. All the insti- society, where they stay vulnerable, tutions of a modern nation state – impoverished and all too easy to parliaments, police, law courts, state ignore. education and healthcare – will have Others become stateless as an disappeared along with the coral atolls, unforeseen consequence of a change sandy beaches and palm trees. in domestic legislation, or because of The islanders will either have to an incompatibility between the laws of find a way to reconstitute their van- two different states. And a sizeable ished state elsewhere, or they will have minority are the victims of a more to find another state to adopt them as pernicious form of statelessness: the citizens, give them a passport and pro- deliberate exclusion of entire groups vide them with all the other forms of because of some political, religious or protection and assistance that a state ethnic discrimination.

exists to give its people. Alternatively AP / A. SHIMBUN S. YAMAMOTO TUV•2007 But there are some currents of fresh they will become stateless – about as Tuvalu: one of the island nations most air blowing through the strange, sad threatened by climate change. stateless as you can possibly be. world of the stateless. There have been A 2005 working paper submitted to recent political and legislative the un Commission on Human Rights framed the dilemma breakthroughs for large groups of stateless people in Sri succinctly: “Whilst States […] are used to addressing issues of Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, and some Gulf States. Gradually State succession, it would appear that the extinction of a more governments are realizing that burying their heads in State, without there being a successor, is unprecedented…” the sand when it comes to groups of stateless people on their The paper then outlined a long list of awkward questions territory is no solution. that would arise in such a scenario, most of them concerning If this trend continues, it may just be that by the time the the rights of the affected population, and who would be re- first island state is submerged, its erstwhile inhabitants will sponsible for ensuring those rights were observed. find a world more inclined to take the necessary steps to It will be scant consolation – but, in the event of a state prevent them from being forced into the shadowy global sinking, its inhabitants will not be alone. unhcr (which has a ghetto of the stateless. Arresting climate change will be a mandate for stateless people as well as for refugees) Herculean task. But preventing this particular side effect currently has an official figure of 5.8 million stateless people should not be beyond the collective capability of the spread across 49 countries. However, the agency believes the international community.

2 REFUGEES N°147 • 2007

Editor Rupert Colville French Editor Cécile Pouilly Contributors 4 COVER STORY Greg Constantine, Keith Delaney, Betsy Greve, Nanda Na Champassak, Gisèle Stateless people often live on the margins Nyembwe, Barbara Porteous and unhcr of society: vulnerable, impoverished and all staff worldwide. too easy to ignore. Editorial Assistant Manuela Raffoni UNHCR / G.M.B. AKASH BGD•2006 16 NEPAL MOVES MOUNTAINS Photo Department Stateless people are Suzy Hopper, Anne Kellner born, or created by A massive government campaign in Nepal Design 4mistake, every day. has regularized the citizenship status of Vincent Winter Associés, Paris 2.6 million people. Production Françoise Jaccoud Distribution 18 STATELESS ACHIEVERS John O’Connor, Frédéric Tissot A film-maker, physicist, writer and cello player Photo Engraving Aloha Scan, Geneva who all rose to the top, despite being stateless. Maps unhcr Mapping Unit 20 SRI LANKAN SUCCESS STORY Historical documents unhcr archives Sri Lanka has granted citizenship to 190,000

REFUGEES is published by the Media UNHCR / G.M.B. AKASH BGD•2006 Tamil tea-pickers whose ancestors were Relations and Public Information Service of Naturalization imported by the British two centuries ago. the United Nations High Commissioner for means new Refugees. The opinions expressed by 20opportunities for Sri contributors are not necessarily those of Lanka’s stateless tea-pickers. 24 SORRY, WRONG GENDER unhcr. The designations and maps used do not imply the expression of any opinion or In some countries, a mother cannot pass on recognition on the part of unhcr her nationality to her children – only the concerning the legal status of a territory or of its authorities. father can.

REFUGEES reserves the right to edit all articles before publication. Articles and photos not NO HUSBAND, NO COUNTRY covered by copyright © may be reprinted 26 without prior permission. Please credit For Vietnamese women who marry foreigners, unhcr and the photographer. Requests for losing your husband may also mean losing copyrighted photos should be directed to the agency credited. your country.

English and French editions printed in Italy AFP / P. UTOMI EKPEI NER•2006 by amilcare pizzi S.p.A., Milan. Circulation: 111,000 in English, French, Statelessness has 28 AFRICA’S HIDDEN PROBLEM Italian and Spanish. had a destabilizing Colonial legacies, political manipulation and 28effect in several ISSN 0252-791 X African countries. environmental factors are all contributing to a rise in statelessness in Africa. Front cover: Stateless Muslims from Northern Rakhine State in Myanmar (also known as Rohingyas) living in Bangladesh. UNHCR / G.M.B. AKASH / BGD•2006 30 SUDDENLY YOU ARE NOBODY Back cover: The hands of a 75-year-old A Zimbabwean newspaper publisher leads stateless woman labourer in a Sri Lankan a campaign against statelessness. tea plantation. UNHCR / G. AMARASINGHE / LKA•2007

UNHCR P.O. Box 2500 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland www.unhcr.org

REFUGEES 3 Millions seek to escape the grim world of the stateless

Some stateless people – like these ones in a camp in Bangladesh – are also UNHCR / G.M.B. AKASH BGD•2006 refugees. But most are not.

4 REFUGEES “To be stripped of citizenship is to be stripped of worldliness; it is like returning to a wilderness as cavemen or savages ...they could live and die without leaving any trace.” —HANNAH ARENDT “The Origins of Totalitarianism”

BY P HILIPPE L ECLERC STRIPPED OF THEIR RIGHTS AND R UPERT C OLVILLE Some people – like Hannah Arendt, who lost her German citizenship after nlike the philosopher fleeing the Nazis in 1933, or the Feili Kurds Hannah Arendt (who was who were expelled from Saddam Hussein’s stateless for 16 years but still Iraq – become stateless as a result of offi- had an immensely successful cial decrees deliberately aimed at ex- Ucareer), most stateless people are – almost cluding them from any meaningful role by definition – anonymous. People who in society, or at driving them out of the live in the shadows at the edge of society. country, or (in the case of Europe’s Jews in People with no chance of a career at all. the Nazi era) as a prelude to an attempt to Stateless people can be found in all exterminate them altogether. the corners of the planet – in developed as Perversely, on occasion it can even be well as developing countries. And there the development of democracy that stim- are many ways to become stateless. Some ulates the omission of a particular group are stateless because of actions taken long from the list of nationals – because of the ago, and other stateless people are being fear of those in charge that the group in born – or created by mistake – every day. question, or some prominent individuals

REFUGEES 5 Perversely, eveN the developmeNt of democracy c

effects of badly designed laws, poor birth registration systems, other administrative oversights, or simply because of a clash of different legislations in different states. The results for the people concerned are often shat- tering. Through no fault of their own, some people – including the 24 year-old woman whose desperate plea from her detention cell is shown on the left – may end up losing their liberty because their parents infringed immigration rules when they were a small child. They may then stay locked up for an indefinite period because there is no state that accepts them as citizens. Sometimes children are born stateless, and stay stateless all their lives. As such, they may be unable to go to school or university, work legally, own property, get married, or travel. They may find it difficult to enter hospital, im- possible to open a bank account, and have no chance of receiving a pension. If someone robs them or rapes them, they may find they cannot lodge a com- plaint, because legally they do not exist, and the police require proof that they do before they can open an investiga- tion. They are extremely vulnerable to exploitation as cheap or bonded labour, especially in societies where they can- not work legally. Then, as if all that were not enough, many stateless people are condemned to pass on their statelessness to their own children – as if it were some sort of genetic disease. At one end of the spectrum, some groups of state- among them, will less people are able to exercise most of their basic side with the political opposition. rights – for example half a million people belonging Groups who, for one reason or another, were left to Russian-speaking minorities in Latvia and out of the body of recognized citizens when their state Estonia, who are nevertheless still deprived of their was first constituted, or reformed, include the Mus- democratic right to vote. lims of Northern Rakhine State in Myanmar (also But for many stateless people around the world, known as Rohingyas); some hill tribes in Thailand; it is a corrosive, soul-destroying condition that colours the Bidoon in the Gulf States; the Lhotshampas from almost every aspect of their lives. Bhutan, the Madhesis in Nepal and various no- A stateless woman called Chen, who once found

AP / 1969 madic groups around the world. herself stuck in no-man’s land between two of her By 1969, Hannah And then, of course, there are the Palestinians, possible countries of nationality, describes what it Arendt had become many of whom became stateless refugees during feels like. a US citizen. the tumultuous upheaval surrounding the creation “Being said ‘No’ to by the country where I live; of the state of Israel in 1948. being said ‘No’ to by the country where I was born; being said ‘No’ to by the country where my parents KAFKAESQUE are from. I feel I am nobody and don’t even know Other people do not have (or lose) their why I’m living. Being stateless, you are always sur- nationality, because of the unintentional side- rounded by a sense of worthlessness.”

6 REFUGEES y caN stimulate the omissioN of certaiN groups from the list of citizeNs.

(Opposite) Letter from a stateless woman detained in the country where she has spent the last nine years, because her parents allegedly infringed immigration rules when she was a child. (Left) Many of the 100,000 Nubians, brought from Sudan to Kenya by the British during the colonial era live in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. They have never been fully recognized as Kenyan citizens. GETTY / T. STODDART KEN•2000

REJECTED BY HISTORY There are hundreds of thousands of people who remain stateless today because of some upheaval in a country that has changed political shape, or because they fell into a black hole created by an expiring empire. Who are the stateless? How is nationality granted? Groups who became stateless after the dissolution The term ‘stateless person’ means Usually through the recorded birth on of the Ottoman Empire, for example, include some someone who is not considered as a a country’s territory, descent from an- of the Kurdish populations who moved to Syria national, according to domestic legis- other citizen or naturalization follow- lation, by ANY state (also known as de ing marriage to one. Naturalization can from other parts of the empire. jure stateless). A second, loosely de- also be granted after residence for a When Syria carried out a census in 1962, some fined category is considered de facto set length of time, or for other specific 300,000 Kurds were left without any nationality. In stateless because they do not enjoy reasons. The rules vary from state to certain instances, some members of a family received the rights generally enjoyed by nation- state – and the variations themselves citizenship while others did not (with the latter re- als (for example their country will not are often the cause of statelessness. maining stateless ever since). grant them a passport or allow them to return) or because they are unable Are refugees stateless? Such groups may gain some hope from develop- to prove their nationality. ments in Sri Lanka where, thanks to a new law passed They can be de jure stateless, but most are not. Groups, or individuals, are in 2003 (almost two centuries after they were first What is nationality or citizenship? sometimes stripped of their nationality brought over from British India), hundreds of thou- The terms are not necessarily synony- as part of the process of persecution, sands of Hill Tamils can now obtain citizenship mous. However both are used by differ- and then flee as refugees. Or, con- through a simple declaration. ent countries to describe the ‘legal versely, they are punished for fleeing by And an even more impressive breakthrough has bond’ that binds together a state and having their nationality removed. But recently taken place in Nepal where, as a welcome the individual. It covers political, social many stateless people do not face per- secution, and many refugees retain by-product of the peace process, a remarkable 2.6 mil- and economic rights, as well as the responsibilities, of both government their nationality throughout their or- lion previously stateless individuals were issued with and citizen. deal abroad. citizenship certificates in just four months in early 2007.

REFUGEES 7 RUSSIAN 54,000 FEDERATION

119,000 ESTONIA

393,000 LATVIA 59,000 UKRAINE 10,000 GERMANY

300,000 SYRIAN ARAB REP. 130,000 IRAQ 88,000 KUWAIT 70,000 SAUDI ARABIA

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC NIGER

CÔTE D’IVOIRE

Note: Few States have reliable statistics relating to stateless people. At the end of 2006, ANGOL UNHCR was able to report 5.8 million stateless people having difficulty establishing nationality in a total of 49 States. However, the agency believes the true total may be closer to 15 million. Stateless populations which are also classified as refugees are not featured on this map. SOURCE: UNHCR | SATELLITE IMAGEMAP © 1996-2004 PLANETARY VISIONS © 1996-2004 PLANETARY IMAGEMAP UNHCR | SATELLITE SOURCE:

8 REFUGEES TURKMENISTAN KAZAKHSTAN 46,000 KYRGYZSTAN 10,000

NEPAL * 3,400,000 BANGLADESH 300,000

MYANMAR 670,000 INDIA

THAILAND

CAMBODIA

ETHIOPIA SRI LANKA

MALAYSIA KENYA 100,000 D.R CONGO

GOLA States with a known stateless population of more than 10,000.

ZIMBABWE States that host sizeable populations at risk of statelessness, for which no reliable estimates are available.

* The total for Nepal has shrunk considerably during 2007, as a result of a massive regularization exercise.

REFUG EES 9 ChasiNg the propiska

Uzbekistan to get money to cover the second sister had both married locals and received BY V IVIAN T AN part of his education. All of a sudden, as a re- Turkmen citizenship (Turkmenistan has also lexei Martinov has spent half his life sult of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the naturalized around 10,000 stateless refugees Abouncing around Central Asia in 19-year-old Martinov’s world was turned up- who fled from Tajikistan in the early 1990s). search of a country that would side down. In the newly independent Martinov applied for citizenship too, but accept him. Today, 16 years after he first Uzbekistan, previous agreements with the was rejected. So, once again, no propiska. became stateless, he is hoping against hope Soviet kolkhoz were declared no longer valid. Frustrated, his wife finally gave up and for a chance to start a new life with his two Meanwhile back in Ukraine – now a foreign returned to her own family, leaving him and children in an ancestral homeland he has country – his institute refused to transfer his their two young children behind. never known. propiska back to Uzbekistan, apparently be- In December 2006, Martinov and the Martinov is one of many people who fell cause he had some unpaid bills. children were deported by train to through the legislative cracks after the Soviet This was just the beginning, as a multi- Uzbekistan. “I did not want to go back Union disintegrated in 1991, and his odyssey national bureaucratic nightmare began to un- because I had nothing left there and [ethnic] through five countries typifies the complex fold, affecting Martinov and millions of others Russians were not treated well,” he said. “The chain of bureaucratic cause and effect that like him all across the former Soviet Union. border guards in Uzbekistan said the lies behind so many of the stateless situations “It was a time of ethnic clashes and anti- deportation order did not meet international in the post-Soviet era. Many of these, initially Russian feelings in Uzbekistan,” Martinov standards and that Turkmenistan should have at least, revolved around the propiska, the all- recalled. “My parents’ home was burned, and verified my Uzbek citizenship before important residence permit, which every they decided to flee to Turkmenistan. Using deporting me. There was a lot of shouting and Soviet citizen had to have and which was my old Soviet passport, I went to Kazakhstan no one wanted to listen to me.” designed to control internal population to join my wife’s family.” Denied entry to Uzbekistan, the country movement in the USSR. The couple moved in with his father- where he had spent all his childhood, the Alexei Martinov, now aged 35, is the son in-law, but were unable to get a Kazakh stateless father and his two stateless children of ethnic Russian parents, who lived in propiska – an essential prerequisite for legal were forced to stay on the train until it eastern Uzbekistan, then part of the Union of employment, as well as for basic services reached the end of the line in Khujand in Soviet Socialist Republics. In 1990, he went such as healthcare. A few years later, they Tajikistan (the fourth of five Central Asian to study in Ukraine with the support of his moved to Turkmenistan, where his own states where he has now lived, but not been kolkhoz, or commune. His propiska was family was now living. accepted). “We were all very tired from the transferred from Uzbekistan to Ukraine. His father had died while he was in trip and just wanted to get off,” he said. “The The following year, he returned to Kazakhstan, and his widowed mother and his Tajik border guards did not know what to do

CHANGING STATES States continue to change shape and continue to make certain groups stateless in the process. Perhaps the most spectacular example in recent years was the break up of a single state – the ussr – into 15 separate successor states. In December 1991, Soviet citizenship ceased to exist, leaving 287 million people in need of a new identity. As a result of this unprecedented political earth- quake, an estimated 54-65 million people suddenly found themselves living “abroad.” Many were even- tually able to sort out their situation, but some with links to two states found themselves citizens of nei- ther, including many ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians living in Central Asia and the Baltics

AFP / B. MEHRI IRN•2005 (see story above).

10 REFUGEES Several hundred thousand Crimean Tatars were rendered stateless when returning to Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR. They have now been naturalized by Ukraine. AFP / S. SUPINSKY UKR•2004 with us. They called Security who took us to five somoni for each car. “I’m very grateful to of Compatriots in The Russian Federation.” the OSCE [Organisation for Security and the management because no one lets me pay Tajikistan’s Migration Service is currently try- Cooperation in Europe].” for anything. I keep everything I earn, and ing to verify his nationality – or lack of it – The family was eventually given a free there are women and doctors to help with the with the authorities in Uzbekistan, Ukraine room at a local centre for disabled people, children,” he said. and Turkmenistan, while the local human where they were still living in June 2007. They While his life has stabilized for the mo- rights centre is trying to help him get a state- receive three hot meals a day and 40 Tajik ment, Martinov still lacks the documents nec- lessness certificate, which is a prerequisite for somoni (about US$11) per month in financial essary to lead a normal life. settlement in Russia. assistance. The children, aged 10 and 15, attend His future may lie in the Russian It is perhaps the ultimate irony that even a the local school while Martinov works at a Federation, thanks to a program for ethnic statelessness certificate requires supporting nearby carwash and workshop, earning about Russians, called the “Voluntary Resettlement documents.

The subsequent upheavals in Central and Eastern THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE (Opposite) Europe, and splitting up of states such as Yugoslavia Between the two World Wars, there were Feili Kurds, who and Czechoslovakia, also led to the emergence of new a number of efforts to codify responses to stateless- were stripped of their nationality stateless groups – particularly among the Roma and ness in specific situations (for example for the Ar- and expelled other minorities. menians and other minorities from the Ottoman em- from Iraq during For example, several thousand people in the world’s pire, and for the so-called White Russians who fled the 1980s, most recent new state – Montenegro (which became to Western Europe, China and North Africa after the waiting to vote for the first time independent of Serbia in 2006) – are believed to be at 1917 Russian revolution). in their lives risk of statelessness because of complications linked These early international agreements usually during the 2005 to the Kosovo crisis. referred to both refugees and the stateless. Rather Iraqi elections, Another post-Yugoslav legislative quirk snared than aiming to solve the problem of statelessness, such despite remaining in several thousand people in Slovenia who were re- agreements were geared more to practical matters exile in the moved from the country’s registry of residents in 1992, such as enabling stateless people to use the famous Iranian city of and either were not aware of, or failed to take advan- Nansen travel documents, also used by refugees. Qom. tage of, a short period of grace when they could have As a result, a lot of people like Hannah Arendt re- applied for citizenship of the new state of Slovenia. mained stateless for many years, but were not neces- They have become known as “the erased cases.” sarily totally trapped by their condition in the way they

REFUGEES 11 The Biharis of BaNgladesh

ancestors, had come to what BY K ITTY M C K INSEY was then East Pakistan from eneva Camp is by any 1947 onwards after the Gstandards – even partition of India. Before, those of miserably during and after the nine- poor Bangladesh – a squalid month civil war in 1971 that slum. Though most of the saw East Pakistan become houses have solid brick walls, Bangladesh, Biharis were they are tiny and less than a killed and had their property metre apart. Outside their looted by angry mobs who crowded dwellings, women regarded them as traitors who cook their families’ dinner over had sided with Pakistan – a open sewers, as toddlers play situation inflamed by the nearby on heaps of garbage. active participation of some However, the most Biharis in various notoriously humiliating blow is that simply murderous militias. By 1972 PHOTO COURTESY OF © GREG CONSTANTINE / BGD•2006 by admitting they live in there were more than one Geneva Camp, residents are shut off from Secretary-General of the Association of million displaced Biharis living in settlements the basic rights citizens expect – going to Young Generation of Urdu-Speaking all over Bangladesh awaiting “repatriation” to school and university, getting a driver’s Community, a group lobbying for full rights, Pakistan, despite the fact that most had license or finding a decent job. recalls the plight of a Geneva Camp resident never lived there. That is because the camp, set up by the who, against the odds, managed to get a Many did in fact move to Pakistan: International Committee of the Red Cross master’s degree. around 178,000 in all benefited from (ICRC) as a temporary site in 1971 and named “He applied to the forestry ministry, organized repatriations between 1973 and after the agency’s Swiss headquarters, is passed written and verbal exams and got an 1993 (when protests in Pakistan brought the home to 18,000 of Bangladesh’s 300,000 de interview card from the government,” Hasan process to a halt), while others managed to facto stateless Biharis – also known as recalls. “But his background was investigated find their own way there. The majority are ‘stranded Pakistanis’ or the ‘Urdu-speaking and the police verification determined he reasonably well integrated in Pakistan’s minority.’ Once they give ghetto-like Geneva was living inside the camp, so he lost the job.” biggest city, Karachi, albeit mostly in very Camp as their address, residents say, the There’s only one way around the situation, impoverished neighbourhoods such as authorities disavow them, despite the fact Hasan adds: “Camp people can get a Orangi Town. that a High Court ruling in 2003 appeared to (Bangladeshi) passport or a driver’s license as In the 116 settlements that remain in clear the way for all Biharis in the country to long as they give a fake address.” Bangladesh – like Geneva Camp – there are be considered citizens. The Biharis’ plight stems from the still some members of the older generation Mohammad Hasan, the 28-year-old separation of Pakistan. They, or their who long for “repatriation” (including

probably would be today. Ironically, in a supposedly The 1954 stateless convention provides a legal more globalized world, it can be more difficult status for someone not considered as a national for a stateless person to travel between countries under the laws of any state. Seven years later, a nowadays than it was in the 1930s. second statelessness convention was added – the In 1949, with millions of refugees and stateless peo- 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness – ple still milling around a shattered Europe, the United in an attempt to prevent or cure some of the root Nations appointed a committee to “consider prepar- causes of statelessness. ing a revised and consolidated convention relating The main problem with both conventions is the to the international status of refugees and stateless small number of states that have ratified them: 62 persons…” In the end, the work of the committee re- countries in the case of the 1954 Convention, and just sulted in the drafting of two separate conventions: the 33 in the case of the 1961 Convention. 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 15 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of and the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of State- Human Rights states that everyone has the right to a less Persons. nationality – but it does not specify which state should

12 REFUGEES UNHCR / G.M.B. AKASH BGD•2006 (Above) Those Biharis who still live in urban settlements in Bangladesh face many restrictions in their daily lives, including limited educational and employment oportunities. However, electricity and water are provided free of charge by the authorities. (Opposite) Many Biharis still live in poverty-stricken conditions in the settlements, 36 years after the civil war that made them stateless.

members of families split between the two challenged,” says the UN refugee agency’s call their desired affirmation of full rights countries). However younger people, such as Representative in Bangladesh, Pia Prytz Phiri. ‘rehabilitation,’ and Hasan defines it this way: Hasan and his group, are increasingly fighting The agency is encouraging Bangladesh to “When a boy from the camp gets elected as for their rights within Bangladesh. declare that Urdu-speaking Biharis are an MP, when people get public service jobs, Khalid Hussain, president of the same citizens of the country, and to include then we will be rehabilitated.” association, says “We believe we are not eligible Biharis on the voter list so their rights Inside Geneva Camp, amid all the poverty stateless. We consider ourselves are assured. Bangladesh’s military-backed and misery, that still seems like a distant Bangladeshis. The legal situation is very government has promised parliamentary dream. An older man approaches two clear.” elections before the end of 2008. UNHCR also visitors from UNHCR walking down the street. UNHCR agrees. “Urdu-speaking Biharis are continues to encourage Pakistan to receive “We have been living in Geneva Camp for 36 citizens of Bangladesh according to its those Biharis whose families are split years and things are going from bad to constitution, nationality legislation and the between the two countries. worse,” he says. He has a simple request: 2003 High Court verdict, which was not In Bangladesh, the young Urdu-speakers “Please pray for us.”

“ I feel I am Nobody aNd doN’t eveN kNow why I’m liviNg. BeiNg stateless, you are always surrouNded by a seNse of worthlessNess.”

grant its nationality, nor in what circumstances. should be provided with a nationality. Other inter- However, some key international treaties which have national instruments, such as the Covenant on Civil been ratified by most states – like the un Convention and Political Rights, as well as treaties tackling on the Rights of the Child (crc) – lay down obliga- racial discrimination and discrimination against tions for states which, if applied, should prevent women, contain provisions designed to prevent the statelessness. arbitrary deprivation, or denial, of nationality for Article 7 of the crc says that states should sys- individuals. tematically register children at birth, and that they The importance of registering births is graphically

REFUGEES 13 AP / R. ESPINOSA DOM•2007

A person of Haitian origin working in a salt mine in the illustrated by the situation of people of Haitian descent Though its early work was mainly confined to east- Dominican in the Dominican Republic, where there are be- ern and central Europe, in recent years unhcrhas ex- Republic, where lieved to be hundreds of thousands of stateless peo- panded its activities to Asia, Africa, the Middle East hundreds of ple. Although the country’s constitution states that all and the Americas. thousands of children born on the territory automatically acquire un High Commissioner for Refugees António stateless people unhcr live a precarious, nationality (except those born to foreigners ‘in tran- Guterres, in a 2006 address to ’s governing poverty-stricken sit’), the failure to register births has meant that many board, stressed that it was necessary to boost efforts existence. are left stateless as they cannot show where they to find solutions: “We were able to resolve stateless- were born or who their parents are. The problem par- ness situations with practical assistance in the Ukraine, ticularly affects descendants of migrant labourers from fyr Macedonia, and Sri Lanka by helping hundreds neighbouring Haiti. The Inter-American Court of of thousands of stateless individuals obtain a nation- Human Rights found in 2005 that existing practice ality, and are now involved in a meaningful coopera- was discriminatory and ordered the Government to tion programme with the Russian Federation. But such register all births in the country. success stories have been too rare. We want to change that.” UNHCR’S ROLE He proposed a concerted programme of coopera- Because refugee and statelessness tion with other specialized agencies – for example birth problemsoften overlap, the unGeneral Assembly gave registration campaigns with unicef – as the best unhcr a mandate to deal with statelessness in 1974. way forward. unhcr is also linking up with various The agency was specifically charged with providing other agencies, including unfpa, to continue the vi- legal assistance to the stateless and helping to promote tal process of cataloguing stateless people through the the avoidance and reduction of statelessness globally. organization of joint censuses with states. thousaNds of people remaiN stateless today iNto a black hole created by aN

14 REFUGEES THE LAWMAKERS “The best way for parliamentarians to demonstrate their determination to reduce or elim- inate statelessness,” said Anders B. Johnsson, Secre- The BidooN tary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (ipu), “is by ensuring that the issue is addressed politically extremely sensitive. BY A BEER E TEFA AND in parliament, that appropriate national laws are A STRID V AN G ENDEREN S TORT Matters were complicated further adopted and that governments are held to account.” – especially in Kuwait – by the Iran- unhcr and the ipu are continuing to urge states he Bidoon, who are scattered Iraq war and Saddam Hussein’s 1991 to introduce nationality legislation to prevent state- Tacross the Gulf States, are invasion of Kuwait. The loyalties of lessness, and the two organizations jointly produced sometimes confused with the Bidoon were called into question. a handbook for parliamentarians that provides the Bedouin. Some of them actually Some, indeed, ended up in Iraq after practical advice for drafting citizenship laws. are Bedouin by origin, but other the war, and remain stateless there. Chile provides an encouraging example of how Bidoon originate from Iran, Iraq, Syria, The difficult situation of the Bidoon statelessness can be solved through decisive action by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States – in Kuwait is the subject of continuous determined parliamentarians. “Children born to and even from Zanzibar. In fact, their debate. Kuwait’s government and Chileans abroad used to be in a very unjust situation,” name – which means “Without” in parliament have both expressed their explained Isabel Allende, daughter of a former pres- Arabic – is a direct reference to their desire to find solutions, and efforts ident and Member of Congress. “In order for them to statelessness. They are the people left continue in that direction. acquire Chilean nationality, they had to come to Chile without a nationality when Kuwait Although the issue remains and live here for an entire year. This meant that many became independent in 1961, followed sensitive, one state after another has children born to Chileans in exile were stateless – by Bahrain and Qatar and the started to take measures to at least because they simply were not in a position to return formation of the United Arab Emirates alleviate the problem, if not yet to to Chile.” (UAE) in 1971. solve it fully. The pioneer was Isabel Allende was one of those who pushed for a “This was a major trade route and Bahrain: in 2001, the government change in the law (which had been brought in by the many merchants were moving back there naturalized 2,090 Bidoon, who Pinochet regime), and in 2005 a constitutional reform and forth,” explains a UAE expert on were of Iranian origin but no longer was passed by parliament. Now, she said, “simply by the Bidoon. “Some settled down and had any links with Iran. virtue of being born to a Chilean father or mother, others were moving constantly. At Then in October 2006, the UAE the child can be registered at a consulate and is that time there were no borders, no issued directives aimed at finding immediately granted Chilean nationality.” Mean- passport control and no system of solutions for the Bidoon. The while, legislators in nearby Brazil are focusing on registering and recording births. It Supreme Federal Council, which is legislation to address a very similar problem there. was a tribal system.” comprised of the rulers of the seven No one knows for sure how many Emirates that make up the UAE, gave LEGAL TRIPWIRES people became Bidoon when the the green light for the naturalization A few slight slip-ups in the framing of a various Gulf States set up their of the first group of 1,294 people. A citizenship law can have extraordinary repercussions registration systems and established total of around 10,000 Bidoon should – as Canadians have been finding out to their bewil- their country records. In the UAE, benefit by the time the process is derment. estimates range from 15,000 upwards. completed. New us travel regulations in the wake of the 2001 In Kuwait, the official number is Abou Ali is 44 years old, and is terrorist attacks mean that Canadians now need a 91,000, and there are very rough employed by the UAE government. passport to cross a previously relaxed border. Some of estimates of up to 70,000 stateless Despite being one of the better-off the thousands of people applying for a passport (or people in Saudi Arabia, but no official Bidoon in the Gulf, he was still their pensions), were informed they were not Cana- figures. thrilled to be among the first group dian. As the cases proliferated, so did the number of During the early years, life for the who received their citizenship in legal tripwires they exposed (mostly linked to some Bidoon was generally not too January. “The day I was called in for unfortunate interplay between previously obscure difficult. However, the huge number naturalization by the authorities is a elements of the 1947 Citizenship Act and its 1977 of migrant workers required to day I will never forget,” he said, during amendment). service the rapidly expanding a recent interview in a Sharjah cafe, economies of the oil-rich Gulf States, “After many years of living here, and meant that the indigenous at times feeling lost, my ship has y because they fell populations were soon very much in finally arrived to a port. This country the minority – and as a result the is my past, present and future, and expiriNg empire. issue of citizenship became the future of my four children.”

REFUGEES 15 Nepal moves mouNtaiNs

BY N INI G URUNG De facto statelessness as a result of inef- consent.” AND E RIC P AULSEN fective or undocumented citizenship has been Other women reported their husbands a long-standing problem in Nepal. The poor- stopped them obtaining certificates because have an identity now,” said Birash Maya est and most marginalized communities in the they wanted second wives or feared property IMajhi, amazed by how easy it was: an country have tended to be the worst affected. disputes. And some fathers did not see any hour’s walk, a bit of a wait in line before Many were unaware of their right to citizen- need for their daughters to obtain them, as they handing over her application form, photo- ship, or of the importance of possessing a cer- would soon be their husbands’ responsibility. graph and some supporting documents. “And tificate. Others simply did not have the means There are also still quite a few people in then we were asked to come the next day to to obtain one. Other factors leading to a lack rural areas – including women – who remain collect our citizenship certificates!” of documentation included discrimination unconvinced of the value of a certificate. “Our Birash is one of a reported 2.6 million against women, the perception of some parents did not have a citizenship certificate as Nepalese people who received citizenship groups as “non-Nepali,” and insufficient state they never felt the need for one. It is the same certificates during a massive government infrastructure to carry out the paperwork. with us. We are not educated, nor are our chil- campaign to regularize their situation in the Human rights activists had long com- dren – so why do we need one?” said Gyani, first few months of 2007. Hundreds of mobile plained that, under previous laws, only men who lives in a remote village in Chitwan district. teams criss-crossed Nepal’s 75 districts, visit- were allowed to pass on their Nepalese na- One of the areas most affected by the ing even the remotest of mountain villages, to tionality to their children. Under the new law, “citizenship problem” is the Terai region bor- ensure that certificates were issued to as mothers can also do so, subject to certain dering India, where the local Madhesi people many stateless people as possible. conditions. However, these provisions have have often been labeled as Indian rather than This extraordinary logistical feat stemmed yet to be fully implemented, as a result of ad- Nepalese. Even though they may have lived from the Nepal Citizenship Act of November ministrative hurdles and deeply-engrained for generations in the same village, many 2006, which tackled the country’s long- cultural factors. Madhesi do not have birth certificates, land standing “citizenship problem” – the “My husband refused to support me to get titles or indeed any of the supporting estimated 3.4 million people who did not have the certificate saying that, as I do not have to documentation required to validate their citizenship certificates, and as a result go out to work, there is no need for one,” said citizenship claims. suffered from a heavily truncated set of civil, Janaki Kumal, a mother of two. “When I went In an effort to get round this problem, the social and economic rights. One of the main to the certificate distribution centre, I was new law includes a temporary two-year provi- aims of the Act was to ensure that all eligible told that since I am married, they cannot issue sion allowing for citizenship by birth (instead Nepalese can vote in forthcoming elections. the certificate without my husband’s formal of solely by descent). Under this provision,

Canadians began discov- had taken out us citizenship, not realizing that this ering they were in fact tech- action affected his entire family. nically not Canadians be- According to the law as it stood between 1947 and cause they were the children 1977, Canadians born abroad who were not residing of Canadian soldiers who in Canada on their 24th birthday, were obliged to fill married overseas. Or be- out a form saying they wished to keep their citizen- cause they themselves were ship. Unfortunately it seems some were never in- born abroad (including formed of this or various other requirements. adults whose mothers had One woman described the last scenario to a Par- popped across the border to liamentary Standing Committee: “I am Barbara

OSOYOOS TIMES / CAN an American hospital to give Porteous. I am a Canadian. Canada says no, you are a Barbara Porteous, birth because it was closer 70-year-old woman without a country. On February aged 70, one of the than the nearest Canadian hospital – for many years 2 last year, I applied for a replacement citizenship card so-called ‘Lost Canadians.’ a common and accepted practice). Or because at some to facilitate applying for a passport. On 31 July, I re- point their father had moved to the us to work and ceived a letter from Citizenship and Immigration that

A few slip-ups iN the framiNg of a citizeNship

16 REFUGEES A Dalit woman collecting stones for a living. Although some Dalits remain undocumented, others benefitted from the recent Nepalese government campaign that regularized the citizenship status of some 2.6 million people. PHOTO COURTESY OF ©GREG CONSTANTINE / NPL•2006

individuals born before April 1990 who prove licence – and in order to apply for a licence, The campaign has been a resounding suc- they have spent their entire lives in Nepal now one has to have a citizenship certificate. Many cess – and shows what is possible when a state qualify for citizenship. of the Bote have therefore been prevented is determined to get to grips with stateless- Prakash Bote also recently got a citizenship from pursuing their traditional livelihood for ness. “Within a short span of time, the number certificate for the first time. He is a member of the past quarter of a century. of people with ineffective citizenship has been an indigenous group known as the Bote, who “The citizenship certificate has changed dramatically reduced,” said Abraham Abraham, earn their living as forest fishermen. However, my life tremendously. I now have a licence to UNHCR’s Representative in Nepal. “The since the establishment of the Chitwan fish and can easily earn 50 to 100 rupees a Government of Nepal should be highly National Park in 1973, fishermen have needed a day,” Prakash said. commended.”

stated: ‘You ceased to be a citizen June 14, 1960, the day gration Diane Finley highlighted the key areas that following your 24th birthday, as you were not resid- will be covered by the new legislation: anyone born ing in Canada on that date, nor had you applied to re- or naturalized in Canada on or after January 1, 1947 tain your citizenship prior to that date.’” will have citizenship even if they had lost it under a Perhaps the strangest category of all includes those provision of the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, she who discover they are not citizens because their grand- said. And anyone born outside the country to a fathers or great grandfathers were born out of wed- Canadian parent – whether married or not – after lock. This seems to have hit the descendants of a Cana- 1947, will also be citizens – so long as they are the first dian Mennonite community in Mexico particularly generation born abroad. badly (the authorities in Mexico at that time refused But malfunctioning laws are often not so easily un- to recognize their marriages). tangled. Each case has to be examined in depth and The Canadian authorities, taken aback by the that takes time. And new laws take time to draft – plethora of problems that have suddenly emerged, otherwise they may just make a bad situation worse. have tabled a citizenship bill for the autumn of 2007. Law-makers need to be very alert. If it can happen in In May, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immi- Canada, it can happen anywhere.
p law caN have extraordiNary repercussioNs.

REFUGEES 17 Stateless BY C ÉCILE P OUILLY ALBERT EINSTEIN Einstein was stateless for (1879-1955) five years before acquiring physicist, born in Germany Swiss citizenship in 1901. STATELESS FROM 1896 TO 1901 lbert Einstein had the un- “Nationalism is an Ausual distinction of being a state- infantile disease. less person in the 19th century and a It is the measles of refugee in the 20th. He was born German, but renounced his nationality mankind.” in 1896 and remained stateless for the next five years. In 1901, he became a Swiss citizen. He regained his German citizenship in 1914 when he became a

member of the Prussian Academy of BERNE DE HISTORIQUE MUSÉE Sciences, and received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. After Adolph Hitler Their principal crime in the eyes of the became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, regime was the support they gave to Einstein resigned from the Academy, re- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize nounced his German nationality for a sec- winning author of The Gulag Archipelago, ond time and became a refugee (not whom they accommodated in their dacha stateless this time, since he had retained his after he lost his home in Moscow. The final Swiss citizenship). He moved to the United straw came in 1970 when Rostropovich States, where he received a hero’s welcome, wrote an open letter defending and in 1940 became an American citizen. Solzhenitsyn and protesting against the re- strictions on cultural freedom. For the next four years, Rostropovich MSTISLAV and his wife were isolated and their per- ROSTROPOVICH formances were heavily circumscribed. (1927-2007) Finally, in 1974, they were granted exit cellist, conductor and political activist visas. Although personally devastated, STATELESS FROM 1978 TO 1990 Rostropovich’s career flourished. His fame n 15 May 1978, Mstislav was such that several of the 20th century’s

ORostropovich, the most famous most famous composers, including AP / DEU•1989 cello player on earth, learned from watch- Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Benjamin Legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in ing the news on French television that he Britten wrote pieces specifically for him. front of the Berlin Wall in 1989. and his wife, the renowned Bolshoi soprano The impulsive and irrepressible Galina Vichnevskaïa, had been stripped of Rostropovich had a huge appetite for life, “You have no idea how their Soviet nationality for “systematic acts and continued to champion dissidents such humiliating it is to be a ‘worthless harmful to the prestige of the ussr.” as the physicist Andrei Sakharov. citizen’ – they chased us out.” “We were obliterated,” he recalled in a But, despite all the success, the pain of exile 1997 interview with Strad magazine. never disappeared. Rostropovich decorated Claude Samuel attended the press confer- his Parisian apartment in a manner reminis- Rostropovich it was much more than an act ence that followed: “It was very moving: he cent of one of the Tsar’s palaces: “It’s my of showmanship. “There, in front of that spoke about the injustice and she, Galina, of dacha in the Far West, I buy everything that wall as it lost its stones, I suddenly regained the cruelty of the decision. Those who were reminds me of my Russia,” he told his friend, my lost citizenship… Those who have been present will never forget it – it was so pow- the French TV producer Jacques Chancel. deprived of their identity understand what erful. They hadn’t planned what they were In November 1989, Rostropovich flew to I had to put up with – the sheer pain, the going to say, hadn’t written anything down. Berlin and played Bach in front of the most intimate of wounds. That moment lit It came straight from the heart. They had Berlin Wall as joyful Germans tore it down. up my whole life. It wiped away fifteen been ripped from their country.” It was a quite extraordinary scene, but for years of disgrace and humiliation.”

18 REFUGEES achievers

“Formerly man had only a body and soul. Now he needs a passport as well, for without it he will not be treated as a human being.” Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was forced to flee by the Nazis. DEUTSCHES FILMINSTITUT DIF. FRANKFURT / MAIN Margarethe Von Trotta in 1977, rectors. She began her career as an actress, “But I still feel like directing her first solo feature “The working with several of the great late 20th a foreigner every- Second Awakening of Christa Klages.” century German film-makers such as where I go,” she HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION / CORBIS Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim said. “That has stayed with me.” “I don’t even know if I wanted to Wenders. As a director, she soon carved out her own reputation as a brilliant analyst of be German... If, every time complex female relationships, and has STEFAN ZWEIG someone asks you what made a string of acclaimed movies includ- (1881 – 1942) nationality you are, you say ing “Marianne and Juliane” (1981, winner author, born Austrian of the Lion d’Or at the Venice Film MADE STATELESS IN 1938 ‘stateless,’ it is as if you Festival) and “Rosenstrasse” (2004). tefan Zweig was a celebrated don’t fully belong anywhere.” “I was born in Berlin, and because my SEuropean intellectual and writer. mother never tried to become German, Deeply depressed by World War I, he be- she remained stateless and I was automati- came a committed pacifist. Because he was In 1990, his Soviet citizenship was offi- cally stateless too,” she told Refugees Jewish, in 1934 he was forced to flee his cially restored by President Mikhail magazine in an interview. “My mother country of birth, Austria, and became Gorbachev. When communist hard-liners was born in Moscow. After the revolution, stateless. He ended up in Brazil, where he tried to overthrow Gorbachev in August the whole family had to flee and – like and his wife committed suicide in 1991, Rostropovich rushed to the besieged many Russian emigrés at that time – they February 1942. He wrote about being state- Parliament and linked up with Boris lost their nationality.” less in his autobiography The World of Yeltsin and others opposing the coup. Her mother was not married, and the Yesterday: When he died, just four days after pair struggled financially. Although she “The fall of Austria brought with it a Yeltsin in April 2007, thousands of tearful was a good student, the young Margarethe change in my personal life which at first I mourners filled Moscow’s golden-domed was stigmatized for being stateless, father- believed to be a quite unimportant formal- Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, alongside less and penniless. ity: my Austrian passport became void and President Vladimir Putin, Solzhenitsyn’s “It was a constant problem. I studied in I had to request an emergency white paper wife Natalya, Yeltsin’s widow Naina, and Paris for a while. You always had to have a from the English authorities, a passport for his own widow, fellow exile and life-long visa, and people to act as your guarantors. To the stateless... [E]very foreign visa on this soulmate, Galina. When the burial cere- get to Paris, I had to cross Belgium, and for travel paper had thenceforth to be specially ss mony was over, the mourners burst into that I needed a transit visa. One time, I didn’t pleaded for, because all countries were sus- spontaneous applause. have one – I was only 18 – and in the middle picious of the 'sort' of people of which I had Rostropovich, and the state he loved and of the night they made me get off the train suddenly become one, of the outlaws, of criticized in equal measure, were finally de- at the border. I was in the middle of the men without a country, whom one finitively reconciled. nowhere. I had to hitch a lift to Paris, because could not at a pinch pack off and deport to I had no money left… their own State as they could others if they MARGARETHE “I wanted to have a nationality – I didn’t became undesirable or stayed too long... care if it was French or German – just be- “Since the day when I had to depend VON TROTTA cause I wanted to be freed from all those upon identity papers or passports that film-maker travel difficulties.” She finally got rid of her were indeed alien, I ceased to feel as if I BORN STATELESS IN GERMANY IN 1942 fremdenpass (the German passport for cer- quite belonged to myself. A part of the nat- argarethe Von Trotta is one tain people without a nationality), when ural identity with my original and essen- Mof Europe’s best known female di- she got married for the first time, aged 23. tial ego was destroyed forever.”

REFUGEES 19 Sri LaNkaN

Over 190,000 stateless tea-pickers have been granted citizenship thanks to a ground-breaking new law, but others are still waiting to benefit.

citizenship laws had made it almost BY S ULAKSHANI P ERERA Principal tea- growing areas impossible for them to be legally o, I don’t have a national ID card. I recognized as citizens. Without the Ndon’t even have a birth proper documents, these stateless people certificate,” said K. Thangavelu, could not vote, hold a government job, folding his hands across his lap. He doesn’t open a bank account or travel freely. appear to think there is anything odd Things improved dramatically when about that – and where he lives, there in October 2003, the Sri Lankan isn’t. He is 58, but looks much older, with a Parliament passed the “Grant of thin frame and coarse wrinkled face Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin bearing witness to a harsh life spent Act” to give immediate citizenship to working outdoors on one of Sri Lanka’s Kandy people of Indian origin who have renowned tea plantations. lived in Sri Lanka since October 1964 Like his father and grandfather before and to their descendants. The him, Thangavelu is a tea-picker usually lengthy process of attaining COLOMBO employed on the Bopitiya estate, one of citizenship was simplified by a hundreds of tea plantations spread across “general declaration” countersigned Sri Lanka’s picturesque hill country. Most by a justice of peace as proof of of the people working on these estates are citizenship. descended from Tamils imported from There were an estimated 300,000 India between 1820 and 1840, when the stateless “Hill Tamils” in Sri Lanka at the island was still under British colonial time of the new law. The un refugee rule. Although these “Hill Tamils” have agency organized a media campaign with (Below) Tamil tea-pickers waiting been making an invaluable contribution to go to work. Their ancestors were the immigration authorities, the to Sri Lanka’s economy for almost two imported by the British from India Ministry of Interior and the Ceylon centuries, the country’s stringent in the 19th century. Workers’ Congress to inform the stateless UNHCR / G. AMARASINGHE LKA•2007

20 REFUGEES success story

A plantation worker shows the receipt for his wife’s citizenship application.

More than 190,000 people obtained Sri Lankan citizenship over 10 days in late 2003. “Almost overnight, the stateless population in Sri Lanka was more than halved,” said Amin Awad, unhcr’s Representative in Colombo. “It was a huge success story in the global effort to reduce statelessness.” However, the process of obtaining the necessary papers has slowed down in recent years, with many plantation workers unaware of — or unable to exercise their right to receive — basic documentation as citizens of Sri Lanka. “I completed the application for a National Identity Card and sent it to the grama niladari [local government official] two years ago. But I have heard nothing further,” complained K. Thangavelu. Asked why he doesn’t pursue the matter, he said, “The grama niladari is at his office only three days a week. The office is very far from the estate. So I have to spend one whole morning there, and then I will lose out on my daily wage. How will my family eat that day?”

DELAYS & OBSTACLES

UNHCR / G. AMARASINGHE LKA•2007 In addition to the bureaucratic process, there is also an tea-pickers about the law and the citizenships laws, and to address practical element of exploitation by some estate procedures for acquiring citizenship. issues such as access to basic owners who profit from their workers’ Mobile clinics and volunteers were documentation and voter registration. legal limbo. Tea-pickers are paid 170 Sri deployed to the plantations to answer A separate information campaign was Lanka rupees (a little over $1) for a day’s questions and fill in the necessary forms. organized for an estimated 10,000 work, provided they bring in a minimum Local authorities, aid workers and union stateless people who had been displaced of 18 kg of tea leaves. At the end of the representatives took part in workshops to in the north and east by the inter-ethnic month, estate workers each receive Rs. better understand the country’s fighting in 1983. 3,740, but only if they work the full 22

REFUGEES 21 UNHCR / G. AMARASINGHE LKA•2007 Tea-pickers on one of the famous Hatton tea estates. Some plantation workers are still unaware of their right to become fully documented citizens of Sri Lanka. days. If the world tea market goes up, they birth certificate and marriage certificate. I and suicide attacks by the Tamil Tiger receive an additional Rs. 25 a month. don’t have any of these. Then what will I rebels, Nithyanandan was subjected to At present, with a 12 percent inflation do? I don’t want to stay at home and be a lengthy questioning by Colombo’s rate, such a wage is barely enough to feed burden to my family. Until I get these security forces after he was unable to one person for a month, let alone a family documents sorted out, I will work for as produce proper identity documents. In of 17 like that of Anthony Nalliah, long as I am able.” the end he decided to return home and another tea-picker on the Bopitiya estate. Anthony’s youngest son, 17-year-old apply for his national ID. With illness and old age beginning Nithyanandan, had more ambitious A full year has passed since he applied, to catch up on him, 55-year-old Nalliah plans. “I never wanted to work in the and he has still not received a response feels he will soon be forced to give up his estate like my siblings,” he said. “But I had from the authorities. So Nithyanandan gruelling job. Fortunately, he is not his to stop my education two years ago feels he now has no option but to join the family’s sole breadwinner, as all but one of because my parents couldn’t afford to rest of the family working on the estate, at his children are now employed by the send me to school. I travelled to Colombo least until his documentation is finalized. estate. Nalliah’s biggest fear is that, when I was 16 and worked for a short “I feel guilty staying at home while my because of his statelessness, he will not while at a poultry farm there, but I had to parents work hard to feed me,” he said. receive the money owed to him when he come back because of the security “So I will work in the estate here until I retires. “They will ask me for all sorts of situation.” get my national ID card, but I really don’t documents like my national identity card, In a city wracked by periodic bombs know how long it will take.”

Prior to 2003, Sri LaNka’s striNgeNt citizeNship laws made it almost impossible for the ‘Hill Tamils’ to be legally recogNized as citizeNs.

22 REFUGEES UNHCR / G. AMARASINGHE LKA•2007 “Almost overNight, the stateless populatioN iN Sri LaNka was more thaN halved.”

Ignorance is largely to blame, said Mrs. education until the age of 16, the school is dustry after getting her national identity Arumugam, the principal of a small responsible for obtaining their national card in 2006. She is now working as a school on Chrystler’s Farm estate in identity cards. However, of the 366 geriatric nurse in Colombo. Hatton, Nuwaraeliya district, considered students studying at the school she heads, “I was really thankful when my by many to be the centre of Sri Lanka’s tea Mrs. Arumugam says only a few will go national identity card arrived because it industry. After 30 years of teaching at on to complete their gce “O” Level allowed me to travel to Colombo and find estate schools, she stresses the exams. work here,” said the 23-year-old. “I am importance of changing parents’ “All of these estate families are living earning much more than I would have if I attitudes. below the poverty line, and they need as stayed on at the estate.” Her husband is also “We try and educate the students much assistance as possible to survive,” applying for his national identity card and about the need for national identity cards she said. “The paltry amount they earn is will then join her in Colombo. “He is with and proper documentation,” she said. not at all enough to feed and clothe the my two-year-old son in Hatton. My “But when they tell their parents, the young ones, let alone send them to school. mother takes care of the child while he children’s comments are simply brushed As soon as they feel the children are old goes to work, but very soon all of them can aside. Some parents also question why enough, the parents put a stop to their join me here for a much better life.” national identity cards and birth education and send them to work on the With a bit of luck – and plenty of com- certificates are important, because they estates.” mitment by those enlightened Sri Lankans themselves have managed perfectly fine determined to end the unjust situation of without them. So these children grow up NEW OPPORTUNITIES stateless people – more of the estate work- with absolutely no evidence of their But slowly, surely, some real ers will soon be able to reap similar success parentage, except a piece of paper issued advances are taking place. Former Hatton from the massive contribution their fami- by the estate management.” resident Kalyani, has successfully em- lies have made to the Sri Lankan economy If the children continue with their barked on a new career outside the tea in- over the past 200 years.

REFUGEES 23 Sorry, wroNg

BY M ARK M ANLY permit him to pass it on to children born should be avoided, and the whole family abroad, they may end up stateless. should possess the same nationality — wo people meet and fall in love. Sometimes a child who is entitled to namely the father’s. As a result, the TThey are married and have his or her father’s nationality may still woman was supposed to take the children. But what happens if fail to get it because his country does not nationality of the man upon marriage husband and wife have different have a consulate in the state where the and so were any children she might bear. nationalities and the wife is unable to child was born, and the family cannot The possibility that the father might not transmit her nationality to her children? afford to travel somewhere where there have a nationality, or that a mixed The ending is not always a happy one. is a consulate. marriage might end in divorce, was not The Association Démocratique des On other occasions, the marriage falls taken into account. Femmes du Maroc describes the apart and the father refuses or neglects to Discriminating against women, when difficulties encountered in Morocco by register a child, and the mother – who it comes to passing on nationality, is children with a Moroccan mother but a desperately wants to pass on her prohibited by two international human non-Moroccan father: “The child had no nationality – cannot do so. rights treaties: the 1957 Convention on civil registry card. The mother had to the Nationality of Married Women, and apply for a re-entry visa each time she DISCRIMINATORY LAWS the 1979 Convention on the Elimination wished to take her child abroad. From the This form of discrimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against age of 15, the child was required to have a against women used to be very common. Women (cedaw). As a result, the practice foreigner’s residence permit which had In fact, the notions of “dependent has gradually been abandoned by more SCHICKERT / DAS FOTOARCHIV P. FRAUEN MAR to be renewed each year. The child had nationality or "unity of nationality of and more countries. difficulties registering at university after spouses” previously predominated in There are, however, still dozens of obtaining the baccalauréat.” nationality legislation worldwide. The states in Africa, Asia and the Middle East Many children born to mixed assumption was that dual nationality that retain such discriminatory measures. marriages will acquire the father’s nationality and, in principle, should be able to obtain a passport and live in his home country. If the father is stateless, however, the children may be unable to acquire any nationality. Freddy is around 50 and has spent all his life in Egypt, but that did not make him an Egyptian. Nor, under Egyptian law, did the fact that his mother was Egyptian give him any automatic right to nationality. “I was born in Cairo; my father was a stateless person of Armenian origin. He came to Egypt after the First World War, when the Ottoman and Russian empires collapsed. Despite the fact my mother had Egyptian nationality, I am stateless like my father,” he says, adding “I suffer from asthma, I am single. I don’t have much to offer a

family.” PHOTO COURTESY OF ©GREG CONSTANTINE / BGD•2006 Even when the father does have a This 20-year-old Bihari mother of a young baby is going blind. She makes paper nationality, if his country’s laws do not bags for a living after her husband abandoned her, and has no access to healthcare.

24 REFUGEES g SCHICKERT / DAS FOTOARCHIV P. FRAUEN MAR A new law allows children born to Moroccan mothers and foreign fathers to receive Moroccan nationality – an important step in the fight against gender-based statelessness.

Although 185 countries are party to women when it comes to acquiring and in some cases, the new laws do not apply cedaw, many have entered reservations to transmitting nationality.” The Learning retrospectively. the provisions on nationality, so are not Partnership is also working in Algeria, In Morocco, the Government bound to respect them. Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. promised in 2005 to amend the 1958 Governments are becoming Nationality Code to allow women to WELCOME CHANGES increasingly aware of the adverse pass on their nationality to their Despite this, there are clear signs impact gender discrimination on children, and the amended Nationality of a change in the air, with active civil nationality issues can have on people’s Code duly came into force in early 2007. society campaigns to amend the laws everyday lives. A number of countries adfm notes that many children born to under way in various countries. In have recently adopted, or are currently foreign fathers have already requested Morocco, the Association Démocratique considering, new laws that seek to Moroccan nationality and have been des Femmes du Maroc (adfm) lobbied address this situation. Since 2004, for able to acquire it, but warns it is still too the Government for years to change the example, Egypt, Morocco, Iran and soon to evaluate the overall law. It has also linked up with Bahrain have all adopted laws which implementation of the new law. organizations doing similar work allow children to acquire their mother’s elsewhere in the region. According to nationality – although unfortunately INDONESIAN EXAMPLE adfm, “we try to share the positive several of these countries continue to set In 2006, Indonesia adopted a new results we have achieved with other at least some restrictive conditions on Citizenship Law which, at least with countries in the Middle East and North the transmission of nationality via regard to gender equality, is a model for Africa, via a network of ngos called the women (for example, in some countries, other countries. Indonesian Member of Women’s Learning Partnership. the father’s nationality is passed on Parliament Tuti Indarsih Loekman Together, we have launched a regional automatically, while a mother must Soetrisno said that when she and other campaign for the equality of men and apply to naturalize her children). Also, members of a parliamentary committee

REFUGEES 25 Gradually those small harmful geNder-related on citizenship made field visits during mother transfer her nationality,” she visas – for which they had to pay a sub- the drafting of the law, they witnessed said. As a result, Indonesian women who stantial amount. If something happens to first-hand the impact of the previous law married foreigners faced many problems. the marriage, the mothers do not have on women and their families. “Their children and husbands were con- any right at all to custody of their chil- “In the 1958 Law, nationality was sidered foreigners with very limited im- dren.” The new law, she says, provides transferred primarily through the father migration status, which obliged them to improvements “such as a much broader, and only in special cases could the leave Indonesia every year to renew their generous and more gender-neutral defi-

Lose a husbaNd, lose a

The stateless brides of birth, they find that they – and often their contract economic matches. So would-be children too – have become stateless. foreign grooms are now trawling the im- Viet Nam Between 1995 and 2002, more than poverished Mekong Delta for desperate, un- 55,000 Vietnamese women married for- educated brides.

BY K ITTY M C K INSEY eigners, with the figure approaching 13,000 For many, the legal problems start to in 2002 alone, according to Viet Nam arise when the wife applies for naturaliza- n danger of being ostracized as an Ministry of Justice statistics. The bride- tion in her husband’s country. In Taiwan, for I“old maid” in Viet Nam at the age of 27, grooms – mainly from Taiwan, South example, the process requires her to re- Loan thought she had found the ticket Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore – are nounce her Vietnamese citizenship first; as to an easy life when an older Taiwanese often older, badly off workers who are un- a result, if the marriage fails before she ac- man asked to marry her and promised to able to attract a woman or afford the re- quires her new citizenship, she ends up whisk her out of poverty. quired elaborate wedding in their own stateless. “My father and mother thought the man prosperous countries. That’s exactly what happened to Loan, looked honest, so they advised me to marry Loan’s husband was 37 when they mar- who dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief as him,” she says ten years later. She is now ried in 1997. “He lived with someone else be- she tells her story, sitting in a sewing ma- back living under her grandmother’s roof, fore, but he couldn’t get married to her chine shop that her grandmother rents out. with her two small children, deserted by a because his economic status was low in At her husband’s request, Loan renounced husband who won’t even take her phone Taiwan,” Loan explains frankly. “That’s why her Vietnamese citizenship and was on track calls. Worst of all, even though she is in her he came to Viet Nam to find a wife.” to become Taiwanese. But she became preg- home country, she is now stateless – Few of the foreign husbands or nant for the second time just as her hus- deprived of all the rights she grew up Vietnamese wives enter these marriages band’s company went bankrupt, so he sent taking for granted. with romantic illusions. The Viet Nam her back to Viet Nam to have the baby. Loan’s plight is far from unique. Women’s Union of Ho Chi Minh City, They were already having problems. Thousands of poor Vietnamese women which tries to advise women heading into Her mother-in-law, she says, hated foreign- who have married Taiwanese (or other for- foreign marriages, and to help those whose ers. They lived all crammed together with eign) men over the last 10 years have seen unions collapse, found in a survey that 86 other relatives in a tiny home. And although their dreams of a good life crumble. Some percent of such marriages are contracted for Loan learned to speak some Chinese before tell tales of alcoholic, abusive husbands, economic reasons, with the women dream- the marriage, “we could only talk on the cruel mothers-in-law, linguistic confusion, ing of a better life abroad. Nowadays, with surface of a subject, not deeply on matters cramped living quarters, deprivation, abuse prosperity on the rise at home, women in between a husband and a wife.” and economic exploitation. When they ar- the booming southern Ho Chi Minh City But as Loan tells it, the final blow to her rive back to seek refuge in the land of their (formerly Saigon) have fewer reasons to marriage came when the second child (like If a marriage fails before the womaN acquires

26 REFUGEES clauses iN citizeNship laws are beiNg chipped away.

nition of citizenship… Under the new whenever I have a chance, I am using law will be enjoyed by as many law, citizenship is awarded to all children every opportunity to disseminate the im- Indonesians as possible.” who have at least one Indonesian citizen provements in the new law, and the gov- It’s a slow, grinding process, but grad- as parent, whether married or not.” ernment regulations, by visiting towns ually those small gender-related clauses She noted however that many govern- and villages in Indonesia, as well as in citizenship laws around the world that ment officials in the field were still not Indonesian Consulates and Embassies have caused so much hardship are being aware of the new legislation. “Therefore, overseas so that the benefits of the new chipped away.

which we can share to address these prob- lems,” says Hasim Utkan, the Bangkok- couNtry based regional representative for unhcr responsible for Viet Nam. “It is good to see the issue is being handled by the govern- the first) turned out to be a girl – not the son ment with so much transparency.” her husband was desperately hoping for. Restoration of citizenship now looks on “He came here to visit me, but when he saw the cards for Nguyen Thi Diem Chi, an ele- that I gave birth to a daughter, he left and gant, self-assured 33-year-old who says she disappeared forever.” married her Taiwanese businessman hus- In the four years since he deserted her, band for love, not money. Fluent in Chinese, her life has been a bureaucratic nightmare. she had worked for him as an interpreter in Stateless women like Loan have lost the Ho Chi Minh City before their marriage, very right to have rights – to work legally or and then moved to Taiwan, where she had to get social assistance. Without Vietnamese two children. citizenship, Loan and her daughters are Speaking of her former husband adrift, not entitled to the vital family-book without rancour, she says the marriage identity document essential for every trans- fell apart because “we were incompatible – action between citizens and government my husband couldn’t understand me.” She institutions in Viet Nam. Her older daugh- said her husband asked her to give up her UNHCR / C. DOAN VNM•2007 ter, now seven, is Taiwanese and therefore Vietnamese citizenship but then, to her Nguyen Thi Diem Chi back in Viet Nam consternation, blocked her efforts to not eligible for free education in a without a nationality after her marriage Vietnamese state school. Like many other to a Taiwanese man broke up. become naturalized in Taiwan. stateless mothers, Loan is facing high Now back home with her two children, charges for the private schooling for her women whenever they hear of such cases, to whom she still speaks Chinese, she is not children. abandoned stateless brides often have no idea wasting time feeling sorry for herself. Since her husband abandoned her in how to set about getting their citizenship re- Instead she has been busy building herself a 2003, she says wearily, “I have to go back and stored – and some fall prey to the same type new life, with a good job as manager of a forth to the department of justice and the of unscrupulous intermediaries who sold seafood restaurant and a well-furnished Taiwan office, and the immigration office, to them into marriage in the first place. Loan upscale home of her own. apply for a visa for my children and arrange says a local lawyer she consulted wants us$ Even so, she says, life without citizenship education for them. I hope we can get the 5,000 to help her get her citizenship back – is a struggle: “It’s difficult because I don’t paperwork done so my first child can go to an unimaginable sum for her. have an ID card or a family book, but I am school.” The unrefugee agency is also working trying to get my Vietnamese citizenship Although justice department authorities to prevent and resolve statelessness not only back and I think I am about to get it,” she in Ho Chi Minh City say they are working in Viet Nam, but around the world. “We says, cuddling her baby daughter. “Then life hard to restore citizenship to stateless have considerable experience on such issues will be better.”
her New citizeNship, she eNds up stateless.

REFUGEES 27 Mahamid Arab nomads in Niger. AFP / P. UTOMI EKPEI NER•2006

annexed to the Belgian Congo, along with Africa’s hiddeN their inhabitants. This group of people, known as Banyarwanda, expanded as a result of subsequent waves of migration after World War I, and the political crises that problem tore Rwanda apart in 1959, and again during the 1970s. Since independence, the issue of the

BY C ÉCILE P OUILLY pendent states that materialized after the Banyarwanda’s nationality has been a colonial era ended have a spectacular consistently contentious factor in ntil recently, relatively little variety of ethnic groups. Some of these Congolese politics. They have been Uattention had been paid to the have never been formally considered as repeatedly granted and deprived of problem of statelessness in nationals despite living in a particular their Congolese nationality and have fre- Africa. But gradually that is beginning to country for generations. The possibility quently become embroiled in competition change – not least because of the realiza- of redrawing some of the colonial borders for land and political power. They have tion that statelessness has already had a in a more logical manner was considered also developed a difficult relationship with seriously destabilizing effect in some and dismissed during the 1960s in case it the small and crowded neighbouring countries, and because there are cur- caused more problems than it solved. country with whom they are linked by rently risks of large new groups of people The state that is now known as the name and by origin, but not by nationality. being rendered stateless as a result of po- Democratic Republic of Congo (drc), for litical developments on the continent. instance, has received several waves of GIVE AND RETAKE migrants and refugees from Rwanda. In The 1964 Constitution, followed COLONIAL LEGACY addition, a 1910 convention between the by a Decree Law adopted in March 1971, Many of the borders in modern successive colonial rulers Germany and gave Congolese nationality to all Ban- Africa were arbitrarily established by the Belgium resulted in some areas formerly yarwanda who had been living in eastern colonial powers, and most of the inde- controlled by the King of Rwanda being drc before 1960. However, less than a

28 REFUGEES year later there was a partial U-turn hosted large numbers of each other’s peo- when a new law decreed that Banya- ples – some 600,000 people of Eritrean rwanda who had arrived in Zaire (as the origin in Ethiopia, and about 100,000 peo- country was then called) after 1 January ple of Ethiopian origin in Eritrea. But, as

1950 were not nationals. relations continued to deteriorate, they AP / B. HEGER CIV•2002 In 1981, the legislation was amended began deporting some of their own citi- once again to the effect that Zairian zens whose loyalties they found suspect. nationality could now only be granted to A few people were physically stranded in Banyarwanda who could prove that their no man’s land for years. Others remained, direct ancestors had lived in Zaire since but effectively became stateless. 1885. Since birth registration in the 19th century was – to put it mildly – far DEMOCRATIC PARADOX from systematic, this resulted in most Ironically, the growing number Banyarwanda having their rights of elections being held in African states retroactively revoked, leaving them has in some cases inflamed the debate effectively stateless. over nationality. “The issue of who can – The massive influx of refugees and or cannot – vote suddenly matters a great fighters into eastern drc in July 1994, fol- deal,” said James Goldston, executive di- lowing the Rwandan genocide, reinforced rector of the Open Society Justice Initia- the mistrust between the various ethnic tive which is running projects to combat groups and intensified the fierce debate statelessness in Africa. “As a result, the over nationality. This issue was a major power to grant, withhold or deny citizen- factor in the 1996 war and continued to ship has become an attractive political contribute to the chronic instability that weapon.” has affected this immense country in the In Côte d’Ivoire, the issue of national Refugees AFP / P. UTOMI EKPEI NER•2006 heart of Africa (see No. 145 for identity (often referred to as ‘ivoirité’) has “I am a xenophobe, and so what?” a more detailed analysis of the situation in been a major factor in the armed conflict Feelings run high during a 2002 drc). that split the once-prosperous West demonstration in Côte d’Ivoire. Recently the situation of the Banya- African country in 2002. rwanda has taken a turn for the better: For decades, the flourishing Ivorian plantation workers of foreign origin and a 2004 nationality law, and the 2005 economy attracted millions of foreign local villagers who had sold or leased them Constitution, confirmed that Banya- workers from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger land. The fragile ethnic balance began to rwanda who can prove they were in the and Guinea to work in cocoa plantations. splinter and references to ethnicity be- country at the time of independence are, In many cases they were given the right came a central element of the political de- along with their descendants, once again to own land and even to vote. Pointing out bate, revolving around fundamental considered citizens of drc. this long tradition of migration and hos- questions such as “Who is a real Ivorian?” pitality, President Houphouët-Boigny – and “Who is entitled to vote in elections or THE LOYALTY QUESTION who remained in control of the one-party run for office?” Matters began to come to a After the 1998 war with Eritrea, state from 1960 until his death in 1993 – head when Alassane Ouattara, a northern the Ethiopian authorities decided to de- declared: “In this country, we are all for- Muslim of Burkina Faso descent and one of nationalize some of its citizens who had eigners.” A 1998 population census the main political figures, was barred from taken part in a 1993 referendum on the in- showed that 26 per cent of the Ivorian running for the presidency. dependence of Eritrea. It was argued that population were officially classified as Issues surrounding the immigrant their participation in the referendum was ‘foreigners,’ although a large proportion workers were prominent during and after proof that they belonged in Eritrea, and of them had been born on Ivorian soil. the attempted coup d’état in 2002, with therefore (since Ethiopia does not permit feelings running very high and outbreaks dual nationality) they were stripped of WHO IS A REAL CITIZEN? of violence aimed at communities viewed their Ethiopian citizenship. In the 1990s, a burgeoning as ‘foreign.’ The armed conflict formally Both countries had traditionally economic crisis led to friction between ended in January 2003, and the March

Some regimes fiNd it hard to resist the temptatioN to maNipulate NatioNalitiy issues.

REFUGEES 29 SuddeN l

BY J ACK R EDDEN

revor Ncube was born in Zimbabwe. THis father was a citizen, and Ncube kept in his home a laminated copy of the document confirming he had taken an oath of citizenship. But in 2006, as the well-known newspaper publisher tried to renew his Zimbabwean passport, he was told he had become stateless. “You can never begin to imagine what it

UNHCR / S. BONESS ERI•2001 means to be stateless – until you are People of Eritrean origin deported from Ethiopia in 2001. As a result of the con- stateless,” Ncube said. “It has a hugely flict between the two countries many others lost their Ethiopian nationality but still debilitating effect. It dehumanizes you. live there as foreigners. Eritrea also deported people in the other direction. Suddenly you are nobody. You begin to think about who you are and where you belong… It 2007 Ouagadougou Agreement marked a resources due to the desertification must have been one of the most difficult further important step towards lasting process has led to frictions between times in my life.” peace. As part of the reconciliation sedentary farmers and nomadic herders Ncube, in what he sees as a form of process, the National Unity Government in the Sahel, especially in border areas political harassment, had become a victim of decided to organize audiences foraines – where different groups had previously complex nationality laws that are leaving mobile courts which can conduct late managed to coexist more or less peacefully huge numbers of Zimbabweans in danger of birth registrations and issue birth certifi- for many years. being stateless. The problem is not unique to cates, which can then be used to establish After the Great West African Drought Zimbabwe. It exists all across the continent – nationality and enable people found to be of 1972-1974, the Mahamids – a small its roots usually arising out of the arbitrary Ivorian to vote in future elections. nomadic group totalling some 4,000 borders drawn by colonial administrators people – moved from eastern Chad to decades ago. However, nowadays the main ONE STEP FORWARD, ONESTEPBACK Niger’s Biltine region (around 1,000 kilo- threat stems from the web of restrictive laws Efforts to address the issue of metres from the border). In the 1980s, constructed by successor governments. statelessness are being made in several more Mahamids left Chad in order to es- “They told me the document I had other African countries, especially cape the civil war there. confirming I had taken an oath of through measures to ensure birth regis- According to a 2001 census carried out Zimbabwean citizenship had lapsed because I tration. But at the same time, as Trevor in Niger, most of the Mahamids possess should have gone to the Zambian embassy, Ncube points out (see story opposite), an id card issued by the local authorities. and formally lodged a certificate renouncing some regimes find it difficult to resist the However, serious disagreements with lo- my entitlement to Zambian citizenship (as temptation to manipulate nationality is- cal residents over the use of water re- my father was born in Zambia),” Ncube said, sues in order to erase political opposition. sources and grazing rights led the central at the office in the South African city of Perhaps the best-known example of this authorities to begin talking about ex- Johannesburg where he oversees his growing was when Kenneth Kaunda, President of pelling the Mahamids in October 2006 newspaper holdings. Zambia from 1964 to 1991, was stripped of (although they pulled back from fulfilling Using his nearly full Zimbabwean his Zambian citizenship by his successor the threat). passport, Ncube left the country of his birth, in 1995. In Mauritania, tensions between went to his main home in Johannesburg and pastoralists and farmers went one step launched a court challenge. “I won the case ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT further, contributing to the flight of quite resoundingly: the High Court took a It has long been predicted that thousands of Mauritanian nationals into very dim view of what the officials in the climate change, and the ensuing competi- Senegal in 1989 – a situation which finally passport office had done.” tion for water, would lead to conflict. In seems closer to being solved through His lawyers interpreted the court Africa, such conflicts are already happen- restoration of nationality and voluntary decision as a precedent for others in the ing. Increasing competition over natural repatriation.
same dilemma, but Ncube says he is

30 REFUGEES N ly, you are Nobody

constantly being contacted by others in people might cast their votes for the elsewhere, the threat of depriving people of Zimbabwe who are facing a similar threat of opposition. citizenship – making them stateless – is a . becoming stateless. Ncube – who owns two In colonial times, farm labourers often powerful and tempting way for a newspapers in Zimbabwe, as well as the moved between what is now Zimbabwe and government to control some of its influential Mail and Guardian in South Africa neighbouring countries – especially Zambia, opponents. Even without political motives, – is well aware that the option of hiring good Mozambique and Malawi. All three of those the ambiguity over citizenship can fuel the lawyers is not available to most people. countries now have different laws governing xenophobia that is a growing problem in “The majority of people who find citizenship. Unlike many other states, none many countries in Africa. themselves in the same situation as mine are of the nations in southern Africa allow “African politicians are so aggrieved by farm workers and general labourers in the people to hold citizenship of more than one what colonialism did to this continent… and city centre, who are very poorly paid – so country, and in some cases people may lose yet one of the most destabilizing creations they cannot afford the of colonialism is the kind of litigation I was artificial boundaries of able to put up,” he said. African states,” said “That means the whole Ncube, who is not matter has really dire afraid to tackle some of consequences for the continent’s people.” thorniest issues. “And After winning back his these rabidly anti- own citizenship, Ncube colonial politicians are used his Zimbabwean hanging on to that, and newspapers to launch a I would think that one campaign to find out day reality is going to how many other people dawn for them.” were in danger of “So for me,” he becoming stateless. Most added, “it is not about come from the poorest reviewing each end of society, but some country’s citizenship people, he said, occupied laws but – at the high political positions. African Union level – “There could be a unifying citizenship

couple of million AFP / ZWE•2001 best practice and Zimbabweans in my Leading Zimbabwean newspaper publisher Trevor Ncube seeing how his looking at a much more situation,” Ncube said. papers fare on the street, after reports that vendors were being harassed. progressive way of “For some people, the looking at citizenship.” status of being stateless does not present their citizenship if they go to live abroad. Ncube would like to see African countries itself as a problem until they have to vote, Some offer children the original adopt liberal citizenship laws, including the until they have to get a birth certificate for citizenship of a parent – even when the right to dual citizenship. He hopes his own their son, until they apply for a passport.” parent has since changed his or her children will be able to make their own Ncube’s problems arose from a number of nationality. Sometimes citizenship must be decisions about which nationality they changes to Zimbabwean law that took place actively claimed, and on other occasions it is adopt. in 2001. These had the effect of stripping inherited – unless formally renounced. In “We need to mobilize citizenship as a way many white Zimbabweans who owned large some places, there is a deadline for deciding. of strengthening our strategy for growth – commercial farms of their citizenship. They Other countries allow a person born there to and not use it to punish those you disagree also resulted in the disenfranchisement of become a citizen by taking an oath; whereas, with,” Ncube said. “We don’t talk about this many of those farms’ labourers, whose elsewhere, citizenship may be contingent on issue of statelessness and citizenship in families had once come from neighbouring a parallel statement to the parent’s country Africa enough because there are a lot of countries — prompting allegations that the renouncing citizenship there. people who have been affected by the new legislation was driven by fears such In many countries in Africa, and arbitrary use of citizenship.”

REFUGEES 31