A child is born stateless at least every 10 minutes
Children in Telipok, Sabah, Malaysia. Born stateless, this baby acquired nationality in 2008 in Bangladesh.(UNHCR Photos/ Greg Constantine/ G.M.B. Akash)
Lead UN Agency on Refugees and Statelessness
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established by the General Assembly in 1950 with the adoption of A/RES/428(V). Through a series of resolutions beginning in 1994, the General Assembly gave UNHCR the formal mandate to prevent and reduce statelessness around the world, as well as to protect the rights of stateless people.
In November 2014, the UNHCR’s launched #IBelong, a 10-year campaign to eradicate statelessness by the year 2024 and published two key documents: A Special Report: Ending Statelessness Within 10 Years and The Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: 2014 – 2024.
A year later, the UNHCR releases the report, I Am Here, I Belong: The Urgent Need to End Childhood Statelessness.
Key international conventions addressing statelessness
- 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons
The Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons was adopted on 28 September 1954 and entered into force on 6 June 1960. It establishes a framework for the international protection of stateless persons... The 1954 Convention’s most significant contribution to international law is its definition of a “stateless person” as someone “who is not considered as a national by any State under operation of its law.” (UNHCR)
- 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
The United Nations Conference on the Elimination or Reduction of Future Statelessness was held in Geneva 1959 and New York 1961. The conference produced the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, A/CONF.9/15. The Convention aims to prevent statelessness and thereby reduce it over time. It establishes an international framework to ensure the right of every person to a nationality and requires that states establish safeguards in their nationality laws to prevent statelessness at birth and later in life.
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