statelessness

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In an historic decision, the High Court has ruled that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful. And could convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika be released following a successful appeal against a conviction that saw him stripped of Australian citizenship.

To many North Americans, the Dominican Republic is known for its sandy beaches and pristine resorts, but there is a story that runs deeper than the clear water along the coast. In the Dominican Republic, a 2013 legal change stripped hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent of their Dominican nationality, leaving them stateless. Rayjon speaks with activist Rosa Iris Diendomi and partner organization ASCALA members Sister Maria Eugenia and lawyer Michael Abreu about the reality for those who remain stateless ten years later.

Original artwork by Samuel “Sammo” Augustin. 

More info and how to help: https://rayjon.org/podcast/

More information and how to help: https://rayjon.org/podcast/
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Glossary 

Who is Hannah Arendt?

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Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth

century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in

Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she

immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She

held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is

best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic

community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and

Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of

the totalitarian phenomenon. Source

Who are the Chakma refugees?

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The Chakmas are ethnic people who lived in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, most of which are

located in Bangladesh. Chakmas are predominantly Buddhists, they are found in northeast

India, West Bengal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.The Chakmas living in India are Indian citizens,

some of them, mostly from Mizoram, live in relief camps in southern Tripura due to tribal

conflict with Mizos. Source

What is the 1951 Convention?

(00:25:25 or page 5)

The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, as complemented by its 1967 Protocol, has

justly been termed the “Magna Carta” of refugees. The Convention and Protocol are, indeed, the

culmination of an uninterrupted effort by the international community, started under the League of

Nations in 1921, to ensure the international recognition of some basic rights and of certain minimum

standards of treatment for persons forced to flee their country in order to escape persecution on

account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social

group. The fundamental importance of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol was stressed by the

World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993, and has been repeatedly affirmed by the

General Assembly of the United Nations, which has hailed the Convention and Protocol as “the

cornerstone of the international system for the protection of refugees”.The Executive Committee of

UNHCR has also emphasised the primacy of these instruments, and confirmed that they form the

international legal basis for the protection of refugees. Source

The episode features:

• Allison Petrozziello, a feminist migration researcher and human rights advocate who is pursuing a PhD in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and is affiliated with the International Migration Research Centre.  She shares her experiences at Laurier and how she came to study in the PhD in Global Governance program and her academic influences including Dr. Jenna Hennebry, Dr. Margaret Walton-Roberts, Dr. Alison Mountz, Dr. Rianne Mahon, Dr. Carol Duncan, Dr. Jasmin Habib and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
• After explaining what her interdisciplinary research encompasses, she explains how her work connects gender, migration, citizenship rights, and statelessness. 
• She explains the global inventory of exclusionary birth registration practices she is creating. 
• Her interview concludes with an invitation of where to start to get involved in eliminating statelessness and efforts to link her academic work with global advocacy campaigns.
• Additional information about the research and transcript (with relevant links) available from wlu.ca/ResearchChat

Episode five of the What’s Best for Children’s Nationality Podcast series zooms back out from the specific country contexts to explore the joint, global UNHCR-UNICEF initiative: the Coalition on Every Child’s Right to a Nationality. UNHCR’s Radha Govil and UNICEF’s Kerry Neal highlight their organisation’s involvement in this Coalition and some real-life problems of childhood Statelessness that they’ve come across through their work. 

The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion has partnered with UNICEF to produce this six-part podcast series, ‘What’s Best for Children’s Nationality’. The series aims to build knowledge around childhood statelessness and the right of every child to a nationality by exploring good practices in the field with examples, challenges and successes from real-life settings. You can share your questions and reflections on the issues raised using the hashtags #NationalityForChildren and/or #ForInclusiveSocieties and find us through our twitter handle @institute_si. You can also send an email to  info@institutesi.org. 

With thanks to the following people for their participation in this episode:

• Radha Govil from the UNHCR
• Kerry Neal from UNICEF

Narrator and partner in production is Andy Clark from Podcast4u. Music comes from Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear under Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. 

Episode 3 of the What’s Best for Children’s Nationality Podcast explores the situation in Lebanon, where childhood statelessness exists in a setting of forced migration and is linked with obstacles to the registration of births among children of refugees from Syria – leaving them without proof of their ties to their country of origin and at a risk of ending up without a nationality. Martin Clutterbuck from the Norwegian Refugee Council in this podcast talks about how legal counselling and assistance are employed to counter this. 

The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion has partnered with UNICEF to produce this six-part podcast series, ‘What’s Best for Children’s Nationality’. The series aims to build knowledge around childhood statelessness and the right of every child to a nationality by exploring good practices in the field with examples, challenges and successes from real-life settings. You can share your questions and reflections on the issues raised using the hashtags #NationalityForChildren and/or #ForInclusiveSocieties and find us through our twitter handle @institute_si. You can also send an email to  info@institutesi.org. 

This episode was created in partnership with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in the Middle East, a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. With thanks to Martin Clutterbuck from NRC and to Maalini Ramalo from Development of Human Resources for Rural Areas in Malaysia (DHRRA Malaysia). Our special thanks also goes to Kholod and to Racha El Daoi and Mike Bruce from NRC for making those recordings. 

Narrator and partner in production is Andy Clark from Podcast4u. Music comes from Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear under Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. 

What are the causes of childhood statelessness? And what would be the consequences? This first episode of the What’s Best for Children’s Nationality podcast covers the basics of the causes and consequences of childhood statelessness, the obligations under the CRC and some reflections on opportunities, challenges and good practices. The episode includes an extended interview with Benyam Dawit Mezmur, a leading international expert on and proponent of the child’s right to nationality, and a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC). 

The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion has partnered with UNICEF to produce this six-part podcast series, ‘What’s Best for Children’s Nationality’. The series aims to build knowledge around childhood statelessness and the right of every child to a nationality by exploring good practices in the field with examples, challenges and successes from real-life settings. You can share your questions and reflections on the issues raised using the hashtags #NationalityForChildren and/or #ForInclusiveSocieties and find us through our twitter handle @institute_si. You can also send an email to  info@institutesi.org. 

With thanks to Benyam Dawit Mezmur, member of the CRC and ACERWC Committees and Associate Professor of Law at the Dullah Omar Institute for Constitutional Law, Governance and Human Rights at the University of Western Cape. Thanks also to Laura van Waas from the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. 

Narrator and partner in production is Andy Clark from Podcast4u. Music comes from Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear under Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. 

This episode of the What’s Best for Children’s Nationality Podcast considers stories of childhood statelessness in South Africa. An interview with Liesl Muller from Lawyers for Human Rights puts strategic litigation and international advocacy at the centre of ensuring safeguards in the nationality law in order to prevent such childhood statelessness. These good practices are also reflected upon by European Roma Rights Centre’s Adam Weiss in the context of antigypsyism in the processes around nationality acquisition. 

The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion has partnered with UNICEF to produce this six-part podcast series, ‘What’s Best for Children’s Nationality’. The series aims to build knowledge around childhood statelessness and the right of every child to a nationality by exploring good practices in the field with examples, challenges and successes from real-life settings. You can share your questions and reflections on the issues raised using the hashtags #NationalityForChildren and/or #ForInclusiveSocieties and find us through our twitter handle @institute_si. You can also send an email to  info@institutesi.org. 

This episode was created in partnership with Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), an independent human rights organisation that supports human rights activism and public interest litigation in South Africa. With thanks to Liesl Muller from LHR and to Adam Weiss from the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC). Our special thanks also goes to Love for her additions to this podcast. 

Narrator and partner in production is Andy Clark from Podcast4u. Music comes from Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear under Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. 

The concluding episode reflects on the challenges, successes and cases presented throughout the series, and offers some conclusions while also setting a possible agenda to increase positive change.

The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion has partnered with UNICEF to produce this six-part podcast series, ‘What’s Best for Children’s Nationality’. The series aims to build knowledge around childhood statelessness and the right of every child to a nationality by exploring good practices in the field with examples, challenges and successes from real-life settings. You can share your questions and reflections on the issues raised using the hashtags #NationalityForChildren and/or #ForInclusiveSocieties and find us through our twitter handle @institute_si. You can also send an email to  info@institutesi.org.

Narrator and partner in production is Andy Clark from Podcast4u. Music comes from Blue Dot Sessions and Podington Bear under Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. 

ISI has partnered with UNICEF to produce this six-part podcast series, ‘What’s Best for Children’s Nationality’, to build knowledge around childhood statelessness and the right of every child to a nationality by exploring good practices in the field with examples, challenges and successes from real-life settings. 

A child without a nationality can struggle to obtain a birth certificate, access schooling, see a doctor and participate fully in society. To be stateless is to be an outsider, even in your own country, which can also have a severe impact on a child’s mental well-being and sense of self-worth. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) affirms the right of every child to a nationality precisely because it is a critical enabler for other child rights and integral element of a child’s identity. Yet it is a right that has historically received relatively little attention, as compared to other child rights, in part because the phenomenon of childhood statelessness is often invisible and/or poorly understood. This is now changing as the international community steps up its efforts to address statelessness globally, with a strong focus on children and this podcast series explores some of the lessons learned so far. 

Imagine having no recognized identity – not belonging – being excluded. Even the basic things in life – getting a job, seeing a doctor, going to school, owning a house – are blocked for you. It is a life of uncertainty in which you dangle in a precarious legal limbo. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals have set the target of getting everybody registered so they can prove their legal identity. Sounds great in principle, but are the right decisions being made? And is there a danger that well intentioned policies could leave the most marginalized and vulnerable locked into invisibility and exclusion? In the Paperless People Podcast we explore these questions with stories from around the world and expert analysis. We look closely at how legal identity and statelessness are interacting, zooming into three countries: Serbia, India and the Dominican Republic. And talk about current attempts to try and tackle statelessness. Listen to the podcasts and find out more. The Paperless People Podcast is brought to you by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion.