The End of Bihari Statelessness Khalid Hussain
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30 STATELESSNESS FMR32 The end of Bihari statelessness Khalid Hussain Approximately 160,000 stateless Biharis live in 116 for Bangladeshi citizens – giving makeshift settlements in Bangladesh. Despite recent access to 22 basic services. developments in voter and ID registration, they continue to A three-member delegation from the live in slum-like conditions, facing regular discrimination. camps, including a member of the Association of Young Generation The people known in Bangladesh education and health-care facilities of Urdu-Speaking Community, as ‘Biharis’ or ‘stranded Pakistanis’ hampers community development.1 Geneva Camp, met the Chief Election are the Urdu-speaking descendants Commissioner of Bangladesh in July of Muslims who lived in different Some of the camp residents, 2007 and submitted a petition for the Indian provinces but mostly in Bihar particularly the younger ones, have inclusion of camp residents in the and who, at India’s partition in 1947, been struggling for years to be new list of voters. On 6 September 2007, the government agreed to give citizenship to those Urdu- speaking Biharis born after 1971 or who were under 18 years at the date of the creation of Bangladesh. In November 2007, twenty-three eminent academics, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists, in a joint statement, urged the government to offer citizenship rights, in line with the country’s constitution, to all Urdu-speaking people in camps in Bangladesh. In August 2008, the Election Commission began a drive to register the Urdu-speaking communities in the settlements around Bangladesh. This was an important first step towards integrating these minority communities into Bangladeshi society. Over several days, the UNHCR/G M B Akash Commission employed enumerators to take forms from door to door, The lack moved to what became East Pakistan. recognised as Bangladeshi citizens. registering hundreds of people of basic Following the war between West Over the last eight years they have each day. Now all camp residents services, such as Pakistan and East Pakistan, when filed two petitions with the High are Bangladeshi citizens and all toilets, East Pakistan became Bangladesh in Court demanding voting rights. Ten of them have National ID cards. washing 1971 the Biharis were left behind. As young residents of Geneva Camp facilities Unmet needs and garbage many of them were thought to have filed the first petition in 2001. The disposal and supported West Pakistan in the war, High Court declared them to be Despite recent progress in voter drainage they were unwelcome in Bangladesh, Bangladeshi citizens and directed and ID registration, however, 37 systems, were treated as stateless and have the national Election Commission years of non-recognition have left contribute to the appalling faced discrimination ever since. to include their names in the list of the Biharis living in abject poverty conditions voters. Subsequently, the Election and vulnerable to discrimination. faced by The Bihari camps are mainly in Commission included not only the They are still denied access to a Biharis living in the Dhaka urban areas and are beset by severe names of the original ten on the list Bangladeshi passport. Mustakin, settlements. overcrowding, poor sanitation and but also the names of residents of a resident of Geneva Camp, lack of basic facilities. The slum- other camps. After 1 January 2007, explained: “Last September, I paid like conditions in these settlements when a new caretaker government 2000 Taka [US$29] for a passport have worsened over the years as was formed in Bangladesh, but I wasn’t given it, even after the population has grown. With that list was declared null and showing my national ID card.”2 In inadequate provision for clean water, void and a newly reconstituted response, Abdur Rab Hawlader, waste disposal and sewage systems, Election Commission was given director general of the Department there are chronic hygiene problems. responsibility for preparing a fresh of Immigration and Passports, Camp residents face discrimination list of those eligible to vote and for said that his department “did not in the job market and a severe lack of issuing national identity cards – receive any instruction from the FMR32 STATELESSNESS 31 authorities on issuing passport to No NGOs or UN agencies have international Islamic organisations, Biharis.” Living conditions remain taken the initiative to collect bilateral donors and other national overcrowded, with five to 15 people comprehensive baseline data from and international donor agencies sharing one or two rooms. The which to develop both short- and in order to ensure a safe and secure threat of eviction and the need long-term programmes for the future for future generations of for education, skills training and social and economic rehabilitation Urdu-speakers in Bangladesh. employment are our chief concerns. of this community. Some argue that rehabilitating 160,000 camp dwellers Khalid Hussain (Khalid.aygusc@ The government has initiated would require a huge amount of gmail.com) is President of the various development programmes funds and a range of well-planned Association of Young Generation for poverty reduction in accordance strategies that Bangladesh, a poor of Urdu-Speaking Community with its Poverty Reduction Strategy country, is ill-equipped to provide (AYGUSC) and Assistant Coordinator Paper (PRSP) but these do not without support from the UN and of the NGO, Al-Falah Bangladesh. address the needs of the Urdu- other international donor agencies. 1. See Policy Brief by the Refugee and Migratory speaking community. How and Movement Research Unit (RMMR) http://rmmru.net/ when will the poverty-related We propose that the government of Policy_Brief/Policy_brief_ISSUE_2.pdf 2. See The Daily Star, 26 January 2009: http://www. challenges of this community be Bangladesh establish a rehabilitation thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=72960 incorporated into the PRSP? trust fund to mobilise funding from Childhood statelessness Maureen Lynch and Melanie Teff Statelessness – the non-acquisition of citizenship – can blight removed. The Burmese government a child’s prospects throughout life. also disavows responsibility. Not recognised by either Burma or Stateless infants, children and youth, their children, the nationality of a Thailand, this child is stateless. through no fault of their own, child born to parents from different inherit circumstances that limit their countries is still a concern when laws Children of Mauritanian refugees potential and provide, at best, an treat men and women differently. born in Senegal have the right to uncertain future. They are born, live Where citizenship is determined be registered as Senegalese citizens and, unless they can resolve their exclusively by the father’s nationality, but some parents are unwilling for situation, die as almost invisible stateless fathers, single women, this to happen. They prefer to wait people. Statelessness can also lead or women living apart from their until they can return to Mauritania to poor home environments and to husbands face numerous barriers to and register their children there. family separation, two important registering their children. If a woman factors affecting child development. is unable to extend citizenship to Children of a Kuwaiti mother her spouse, statelessness may be and a Bidoon – stateless – father Apart from the ways in which any imposed on her and the children. are also Bidoon. Since a child of person can become stateless, a child Whether parents are married or a divorced Kuwaiti woman or in particular can become stateless not may also determine a child’s widow can theoretically acquire when a family migrates away from a nationality. For example, one legacy citizenship, there is an incentive to country where citizenship is conveyed of UN peacekeeping is fatherless divorce for the sake of the child. by jus sanguinis; a child has the right children – and the citizenship rights to citizenship of the parents’ country of children born to UN troops and At a briefing on stateless children of origin but cannot always access female nationals are not always clear. the US Congress was told about it and may instead become de facto the case of a stateless family whose stateless in the country where they In the end, perhaps the most obvious asylum appeal was denied was grow up. Lack of birth registration reason why children become stateless related. The five-year-old daughter can cause statelessness. Children may is that they cannot act for themselves. was placed in a cell with her mother. not be registered because parents fear The eight- and 14-year-old sisters drawing attention to their own status. Protection and rights were detained together elsewhere. A child can also become stateless Birth registration is the official record The 15-year-old son was held when a birth record is destroyed or of a child’s birth by the state and a alone. The father was separated lost and there is no other means to government’s first acknowledgement from his family by hundreds of link them with a particular country. of a child’s existence. It is crucial miles. The three-year-old was not to ensuring a culture of protection. held because she is a US citizen. Inequitable laws also create childhood Consider the following examples. statelessness. Although in the last Being stateless also means not 25 years, at least 20 countries have On the day that the child of a being able to access many other changed their laws to give women Burmese asylum seeker is born in rights available to citizens. For the right to pass their nationality to a Thai hospital, the birth record is stateless children, medical care .