The Plight of the Stateless

[LadyShea]

Not anything I had even thought about before, but very troubling.

Invisible millions pay price of statelessness - AlertNet

The effects vary by country, but typically stateless people are barred from education, healthcare and formal employment. They often can't start a business, own property, hold a driving license or open a bank account. They can't get married legally or travel abroad to work or visit family.

And they can't vote, which means they can't elect politicians who might be able to improve their lot.

A major factor behind statelessness is often racial or ethnic discrimination. Syria, for example, denationalised many Kurds in 1962 and Mauritania expelled around 75,000 Black Mauritanians in 1989.

Stateless people are vulnerable to exploitation, including slavery and prostitution, and risk arbitrary detention. Their lack of identity can make accessing legal help impossible -- no one knows how many stateless people are locked up worldwide.

[Watser?]

Syria has given Kurds Syrian passports this year. It's one of the few positive things to come out of the protests there so far.

[Vivisectus]

Strange that they do not thrive, free as they are from the parasitic state that oppresses them and takes their hard-earned wealth. Surely they are living in little paradises, enjoying the right to vote with their feet, and shown all the loving beneficence of employers that are free from any restraint?

[Watser?]

Of course the biggest group of stateless people are Palestinians. Israel won't allow them or their descendents to go back to where they came from (as it would undo their ethnic cleansing or as they put it "undermine the Jewish character of the state of Israel") and the Arab states that they went to have not given them passports either (because they want to undo the ethnic cleansing, but also in Lebanon for instance because it would blow up the delicate sectarian balance in their country), except Jordan (but they do restrict travel for Palestinians).