Futures denied: Statelessness Among Infants, Children and Youth October 2008 Lynch, M This is a qualitative report that

tackles the common causes and consequences of statelessness among infants, children, and youth. Findings are based on Refugees International field visits focused on groups of stateless people in Bangladesh, Cte d Ivoire, Dominican Republic/Haiti, Estonia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Senegal/Mauritania, Syria, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. The primary international covenants with regards to nationality are the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Stateless. The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Stateless, which is comprised of 35 countries, covers the stateless people not tackled in the 1954 Convention, with 63 countries partied. The latter convention is a global instrument which seeks to address causes of statelessness by creating rules for attribution of nationality and preservation of nationality where statelessness would occur. Stated in this report that a diverse number become stateless because of countless of reasons and some of which that are cited were the political change or if a government writes laws excluding minority groups from citizenship, registration system are destroyed, families who leave homes during political crises, children of refugee mothers who gave birth outside their home countries, Among the consequences of being a stateless person is the deprivation of international recognition or aid. They are unable to obtain passports, hence restricting

them to travel freely. Stateless beings dont have any option of returning to a country of origin like migrants. Undocumented children are restricted of receiving public secondary education and infants of the same state have limited access to health care and primary education. People without nationality are susceptible to exploitation, forced or early marriage, harassment, sexual and physical violence and trafficking. This minority is unable to acquire informal sector and thus has no choice but to engage to smuggling. The certificate of birth establishes the legal identity and the States responsibility for a child. However, majority of undocumented children are not stateless. This paper explains how one can acquire citizenship: jus soli, jus sanguinis and naturalization and presents the existence of inequalities of nationality rights in laws among men and women. The nationality of an illegitimate child is dependent on the father unless he refuses paternity, divorces mother or the mother cannot prove the fathers nationality. If this happens, the child can adopt the mothers nationality, otherwise stateless. This research concludes recommendations that all government states, United Nations and the United States to respect fundamental children human right of nationality. The best way to abolish stateless persons is the registration of all each child in the country of their birth. There is an international law that stateless children possess almost the same rights likewise with children of citizenship, but is being hindered by national laws and practices.

One of these international laws is stated on the Article 9 of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that women are granted equal rights with men with respect to nationality. Countries such as Bangladesh, Mauritania, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and UAE are taking steps to provide citizenship to formerly stateless people. The United States, as a world leader and international donor, should be extending full support to the UN by strengthening UNHCR to further reinforce the UNICEF to prevent and reduce statelessness. This rrl solidifies our focus on stateless children in the Philippines. It provides a whole lot of understanding about how stateless children exist and how being a stateless being impacts them, which could help us further elaborate the facts with the current situation of these invisible children.

Reference: Lynch, M. (2008). Futures denied: Statelessness among infants, children and youth. Refugees International. Retrieved from http://www.refintl.org/sites/default/ files/Stateless_Children_FINAL.pdf