UNHCR released study titled I am Here, I belong on Need to End Childhood Statelessness

UNHCR released a report in the day to mark one year since the launch of its Campaign to End Statelessness by 2024 reporting that in every 10 minutes, a child is born stateless somewhere in the world and stateless children across the world share the same feelings of discrimination, frustration and despair.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres was at UN Headquarters in New York to display the new report at a high-level panel discussion on the importance of the right to nationality.

Key points:

1. The report describe the first geographically discrete survey of the opinions of stateless children which classify the common crunches they face as totally affecting their ability to enjoy childhood
2. More than 250 people in Cote d’Ivoire, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia and Thailand, including children, youth and their parents or guardians were examined for the report
3. As per UNHCR, stateless young people disprove the opportunity to receive school qualifications, go to university and find a job. They face discrimination and harassment by authorities and are more exposed to exploitation and lack of nationality often sentences them and their families and communities to remain strapped and signalized for generations.
4. To end statelessness, UNHCR is pleading all States to allow children to gain the nationality of the country in which they are born if they would otherwise be stateless;

• Reform laws that inhibit mothers from passing their nationality to their children on an equal basis as fathers
• Eliminate laws and practices that deny children nationality because of their ethnicity, race or religion
• Ensure universal birth registration to prevent statelessness

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

To protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country.

• HQ: Geneva, Switzerland
• Member of the United Nations Development Group
• Won two Nobel Peace Prizes, once in 1954 and again in 1981.