As part of our Stateless Journeys project, ENS has been working with our members in five European countries to address cases of statelessness among children born to asylum seekers
All families involved in the project were provided with legal assistance to help the children obtain a nationality as part of a new approach to help tackle and prevent childhood statelessness. This included providing a platform for children, young people and their parents to tell their stories, give their views on what needs to change and involving them in strategic decisions regarding the resolution of their case.
Today we're launching a report and a film documenting two years of legal casework involved in the project and the experiences of lawyers and families. The report details the myriad causes of statelessness among children living in different countries and the complex legal casework required to realise every child’s right to a nationality.
The report includes the stories of 23 children from different backgrounds and whose risk of statelessness stems from a wide range of circumstances. Many were born in the country where the research took place. Others were born in transit or in their parent’s country of origin. They include unaccompanied children and children living with parents, children granted international protection and those with insecure status.
All children were supported by one of ENS’s member organisations providing legal assistance: Tirana Legal Aid Society (TLAS) in Albania, Foundation for Access to Rights (FAR) to Bulgaria, Organization for Aid to Refugees (OPU) in the Czech Republic, Fundación Cepaim in Spain, and Right to Protection (R2P) in Ukraine.
What puts a child at risk of statelessness?
Rita, Adnan and Asma* belong to ethnic groups known to face significant risks of statelessness. Rita’s parents are Kosovar. She is at risk of statelessness because her family doesn’t have a secure residence status, has difficulties with their documentation, and a family history of displacement in a region affected by State succession. Adnan’s parents are Palestinian. He inherited his statelessness from his parents and then struggled to acquire Bulgarian nationality despite existing legal safeguards, after the authorities failed to recognise that he had been born stateless in Bulgaria. Asma’s mother is Eritrean and she was born in Ukraine while her mother sought asylum. Due to legal and practical barriers, she cannot acquire Eritrean nationality from her mother and her father is absent, so Asma would be stateless unless she acquires Ukrainian nationality.
For other children, like Mia and Anna, their statelessness arose from particular individual circumstances, sometimes as a result of their displacement. Mia’s parents could not pass on their nationalities, because their countries of origin required them to register her birth with the very authorities from whom they fled. Anna’s mother gave birth to her in a country she passed through, without any documents of her own, and then left without any documentary proof of Anna’s birth. Later no country would recognise them as its nationals.
Other cases covered in the research illustrate some of the myriad causes of statelessness among refugee children, including inherited statelessness, discrimination against minorities, recent histories of conflict, State succession, gaps in the nationality laws, issues with documentation or birth registration, situations of domestic abuse, and alleged national security concerns in relation to children born in conflict zones.
There is more than one way to approach individual cases
Over the course of the project, ENS members worked with families to document which legal strategies worked to resolve the statelessness issues they faced, and which did not. The approaches employed differed across countries and cases. In Albania, for example, TLAS supported Rita’s parents in meeting with the authorities and submitting administrative and then civil court proceedings. This helped the family to correct the names and birth dates recorded in the documents and regularise the family’s residence status. Ultimately, this allowed all family members to acquire and confirm citizenship.
In the Czech Republic lack of a dedicated statelessness determination procedure remains one of the key systemic barriers. This means that identifying and determining statelessness requires expert advice and advocacy. The lawyers at OPU first sought regularisation or citizenship for the families through administrative routes, before considering pursuing solutions through the courts, because administrative procedures are often too complex and lengthy. Mia’s family experienced such frustrating delays, and although Mia and her mother were eventually granted subsidiary protection, Mia’s statelessness remains unresolved.
In Spain, lawyers and reception support at Fundación Cepaim worked with families to resolve the children’s cases through the relevant administrative procedures. This included accompanying families to civil registry offices, or seeking information from authorities abroad. Other approaches included advocating with competent authorities to speed up delayed procedures, and supported families to explore their options and gather necessary evidence and documents.
R2P, our member in Ukraine, took on administrative and court proceedings and submitted petitions to the ombudsperson to advocate on a range of issues related with the implementation of the law. Across all countries, where partners were successful in resolving the children’s statelessness, this required complex legal casework and support coordinated by expert lawyers, with the input of a range of different agencies and actors.