Atlas of the Stateless

I so desperately want to belong. I have been living in my home country since I was born. But officially I do not exist – I am a so-called “stateless person”. I am over 60 years old now. Most of my life I’ve fled from war, hunger and prosecution together with my family. My government decided that I am part of a minority whose citizenship is to be taken away. I’ve been stateless ever since – just because they said so. I went to school for seven years.

00:34 - When I was getting ready to graduate they asked for my papers. I don’t have any papers. They told me that without papers I cannot graduate. All my schooling is worthless without a formal certificate. After searching for a long time, we finally found a country that allowed us to stay. But everything is different. I lost my papers while fleeing and my country refuses to issue me new ones. Under no circumstances will I be granted another citizenship in the new country. I have to take care of my family, but without papers no one will give me a job here. I always wanted to start a family and now I’m finally pregnant. But as happy as I am about having a child, I’m also increasingly afraid. I will not be able to have the baby in a hospital because I have no insurance.

01:22 - I don’t have enough money to pay for hospital treatment. Without proper papers I would have to pay the same amount as foreigners do. My child won’t even get a birth certificate. I wonder why my child should have to suffer just because I don’t have formal identification? Although my daughter-in-law was born here, this is one of 27 countries in the world where women are not allowed to pass on their nationality to their children. Only the man can do that. But my son would need his own papers for that, and we don’t have them either.

01:56 - Without documents he and his children will remain stateless. It’s going to be almost impossible for them to study or to find a proper job. - Stateless people exist everywhere in the world. The exact number is unknown because very little data on stateless people is collected. But given the high estimated number of unreported cases, experts assume that there are at least 10 million stateless people in the world.

02:19 - For the most part, state regulations excluding certain people along with flight and migration are the principle causes leading to people losing their citizenship or never receiving it in the first place. Their fates differ from one another but the consequences remain the same, as they are denied their most basic rights: education, medical treatment, security, the right to ownership, opportunities to work and to pass on their nationality to their children, to vote, or simply to travel. Everyone is entitled to these universal rights – they cannot be tied to any kind of citizenship. I dream of a world where my family feels safe, and would like to see it come to pass before I die. How on earth can it be that I am here in flesh and blood and yet do not exist? .