Column | Justice Matters

Stories of statelessness

   Aug 7, 2017
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   personal, the agency name and personal names are not used — an
   indication of how human dignity, even one's name, is denied to the
   stateless.

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   the rights. Ameera could not report the abuse since the police had
   previously harassed her. The staff of the shelter say Ameera's story is
   the norm, a "systemic bullying" of the stateless.

   As a stateless woman, all but invisible, Ameera possessed no
   nationality, no rights, no protection and, now, no child. As an asylum
   seeker she is registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for
   Refugees (UNHCR), which gives her a refugee identity card. However,
   Malaysia is not a signatory to the international conventions on
   statelessness or migrants, so she has no pathway to stability
   ("regularization"). Malaysia simply does not grant citizenship to
   Rohingya or to their children born in Malaysia. So the sad ending to
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   enduring abuse.

   A stateless person, by definition, does not have a nationality. A
   stateless person belongs nowhere, to no one and is barely regarded as
   human in relation to basic social protections or rights that ought to
   be universal. The help offered by the shelter can be meager but it
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   Despite the hazards of migration, Saniyi (13 when she migrated)
   exhibits the unrelenting hope of so many migrants. Saniyi lived in
   chronic poverty in Myanmar, a stateless child of a stateless single
   mother. She had heard stories of girls in Malaysia who sent money to
   their family, so when a relative asked if she wanted to become a
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   Saniyi was referred to the shelter for protection. The shelter,
   together with UNHCR, began advocacy for resettlement to a third
   country, since as a Rohingya she would remain stateless forever in
   Malaysia. After a year, she passed the settlement process and is now
   living in the United States, with an agency overseeing her development
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   Accompanying stateless persons is a long road with no end in sight.
   Regarding the shelter ministry, the director says: "For as long as the
   refugees remain marginalized in this country we will continue to
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Migration | Stories of statelessness

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