SOLVING STATELESSNESS etc. Their statelessness has since been used as the justification for their continued exclusion from society down the generations. A more subtle form of discrimination can also play out. This is where socio-economically disadvantaged groups - most often the rural poor — cannot acquire documentation due to difficulties in accessing centralised administrative offices. The resulting lack of documentation - while not akin to statelessness (many citizens around the world do not have documentation) - can result in statelessness for those who cannot prove place or date of birth, parentage or other information needed to demonstrate eligibility for citizenship. Finally, the inheritance of statelessness is the biggest cause of statelessness in the world today. The impact of the causes identified above continues because States have not found solutions for stateless populations and new generations are therefore born into statelessness every day. This lack of will to address existing statelessness situations is often linked to discriminatory attitudes and perceptions about belonging. 2.2 The inequalities of stateless persons Statelessness is the most extreme consequence of the violation of the right to a nationality. As described above, this is often motivated by discrimination on grounds of race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic disadvantage or even disability.2? Discrimination which leads to statelessness often continues to affect the life of the stateless person. Indeed, in addition to continuing to face discrimination on the basis of pre-existing characteristics, a person’s status as stateless often becomes a basis for further discrimination. This is despite a recent UN Secretary General’s report finding that “there is no legal basis upon which States that have arbitrarily deprived a child of his or her nationality can justify the denial of other human rights to the child on grounds of his or her resulting statelessness”.”* 23 24 According to Article 18(1)(a) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 13 December 2006, entry into force 3 May 2008, 2515 UNTS 3, disabled persons “[h]ave the right to acquire and change a nationality and are not deprived of their nationality arbitrarily or on the basis of disability”. UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Secretary General on Impact of the arbitrary deprivation of nationality on the enjoyment of the rights of children concerned, and existing laws and practices on accessibility for children to acquire nationality, inter alia, of the country in which they are born, if they otherwise would be stateless, 16 December 2015, A/HRC/31/29, para. 28. 105