[nasional_list] [ppiindia] The people who have no country ...
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 03:42:36 +0100
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The people who have no country ...
Maureen Lynch International Herald Tribune
Friday, February 18, 2005
The uprooted I
WASHINGTON There are millions of people in the world who are citizens of
nowhere. They cannot vote, they cannot get jobs in most professions, they
cannot own property or obtain a passport. These "stateless" people face
discrimination, sexual and physical violence and socioeconomic hardship. Often
they are denied access to health care and education.
.
The vulnerability of statelessness is captured in the words of a Bidoon living
in the United Arab Emirates who asks: "What have we done to be treated like
animals? We can't get a job and can't move around. We are between the earth and
the sky, like a boat without a port."
.
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that "everyone has the
right to a nationality." But statelessness remains a reality in all regions of
the world. The exact numbers are not known, but a conservative estimate is 11
million stateless persons around the world. They include groups whose situation
is relatively well recognized, like Europe's Roma, the Palestinians and the
Kurds, and groups whose plight is virtually unknown, like people from the
former Soviet bloc, some of Thailand's ethnic groups, the Bhutanese in Nepal,
Muslim minorities in Burma and Sri Lanka, and ethnic minorities of the Great
Lakes region of Africa like the Batwa "Pygmy" and the Banyamulenge.
.
The myriad causes of statelessness may include political upheaval, targeted
discrimination (often for reasons of race or ethnicity), differences in laws
between countries, laws relating to marriage and birth registration, expulsion
of a people from a territory, nationality based only on descent (usually that
of the father), abandonment and lack of means to register children.
.
One stateless population that the world has neglected are 250,000 to 300,000
Biharis (also called stranded Pakistanis), who were stripped of their
citizenship after Bangladesh became a nation because they sided with West
Pakistan during the struggle for independence. For the past two decades these
people have lived in 66 squalid camps throughout Bangladesh. Recently the
Bangladeshi government cut food rations to camps, forcing Bihari families to go
without food for two or three days in a row.
.
States have the right to determine the procedures and conditions for
acquisition and termination of citizenship, but statelessness and disputed
nationality can only be addressed by the very governments that regularly breach
the norms of protection and citizenship. To date, only 57 states are party to
the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and even
fewer, just 29 states, are party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of
Statelessness. The United States has not signed either one. And despite its
mandate, only two staff members in the office of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees focus on helping the world's stateless people.
.
The gap between rights and reality can be closed. Governments must respect the
right of all individuals to have a nationality. Countries should sign and
adhere to international standards to protect stateless people and reduce
statelessness by facilitating naturalization processes. The office of the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees can be strengthened as the lead agency in
accordance with its mandate on statelessness. The United States, whose aid
budget often helps countries who have stateless people within their borders,
should certainly require and evaluate the protection of stateless people.
.
Prevention and reduction of statelessness will contribute to the promotion of
human rights, to an improved quality of life for those affected and to
increased security around the globe. It will go a long way toward bringing
millions of people closer to freedom, which truly gives the world its best hope
for peace.
.
(Maureen Lynch is the director of research for Refugees International, based in
Washington. Her report, ''Lives On Hold,'' can be found online at
www.refugeesinternational.org
.)
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