In this blog I consider the stateless population in Sabah state, part of Malaysia, how and why they are in this precarious position and what, if anything, Malaysia is doing to reduce the number of stateless people in Sabah. Who are the Sabah stateless? Sabah is a state in Malaysia and part of the island of Borneo. Sabah became …
“You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious …
An estimated 5.4 million individuals in Nepal (24 per cent of the population aged 16 years and above of Nepal’s 30 million population) do not have citizenship documentation. I wrote about all the basic rights that are unavailable to a stateless person here. Statelessness in a population arises for a number of reasons such as minority group discrimination, migration issues, …
In this blog I take a second look at legal identity for children in light of South Africa’s recent proposals to refuse to issue birth certificates to children born in South Africa to foreign parents. I look at the new proposals which have attracted much criticism and consider attempts elsewhere to do the same. The impact of restricting birth registration …
The Wild Boars football team trapped in a cave in Thailand this summer received a lot of media attention, as did their subsequent dramatic rescue. The media initially reported on their endurance as they waited to be rescued and on the bravery of their rescuers. Then, as more was discovered about the team, the attention focused on the fact that …
Statelessness 10 million people are currently stateless and many more are at risk of statelessness. Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defines a stateless person as: “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”. A lot is written about statelessness and stateless people …
In this post I examine the issue of statelessness in Côte d’Ivoire. I argue that the country needs to move on from the discriminatory treatment of stateless and undocumented people within its borders, especially children. Côte d’Ivoire also needs to take steps to fulfil the commitments it has made to eliminate statelessness under international law. Forced and voluntary migration …
Millions at risk of becoming stateless in Assam Province After 30 July 2018 the status of millions in Assam Province could change overnight. Al-Jazeera, the Hindu newspaper and The Independent , amongst others, have recently featured stories about the five million people at risk of becoming stateless in Assam Province, India, as they are now required to prove that they …
In its recent judgment Hoti v Croatia the European Court of Human Rights considered what it means for the Applicant to be stateless and without access to an effective and accessible procedure in the host state to obtain residency and legal status. Background to the claim in Hoti v Croatia Mr Hoti, the Applicant, moved to Croatia in the 1980s as a teenager …
In my earlier post,I discussed the domestic and international legal provisions on voting and voter registration in Kenya. In this post, I delve deeper and look at the barriers facing minority communities in Kenya in evidencing their Kenyan citizenship. My focus is on the experiences of evidencing citizenship for Kenyan-Somalis and the Nubian Community in Kenya. Kenya’s Somali Ethnic Group …
