CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 6 STATELESS POPULATION AN ‘INVISIBLE’ PROBLEM - HARD TO TRACK Stateless people are not considered as nationals by any State under its law. Statelessness is sometimes referred to as an invisible problem, because stateless people often remain unseen and unheard. They may not be able to go to school, see a doctor, get a job, open a bank account, buy a house, or even get married. Stateless people frequently live in precarious situations on the margins of society, making it a challenge to measure statelessness. Despite the increasing number of countries engaged in reporting on and enhancing the reliability of their figures, UNHCR was unable to provide comprehensive statistics on stateless people in all countries in 2016. Of the estimated 10 million stateless people around the world, only 3.2 million are captured in this report. UNHCR’s statistics on statelessness focus mainly on de jure stateless people: those not considered as nationals by any State under its law. However, data from some countries also includes people of undetermined nationality. By the end of 2016, statistics on people falling under UNHCR’s statelessness mandate were available for 75 countries (Figure 20). In addition, Annex Table 7 includes countries marked with an asterisk where UNHCR has information about the existence of significant stateless populations but where reliable figures are not available. These countries remain priorities for UNHCR in its efforts towards improved data on statelessness. 48 The identification of stateless people is key to addressing difficulties they face and to enabling governments, UNHCR, and others to prevent and reduce statelessness. Action 10 of UNHCR’s Global Action Plan to End Statelessness67 (GAP) and the guiding framework to achieve the goals of UNHCR’s #IBelong Campaign68 focus on improving quantitative and qualitative data on statelessness. In addition, the establishment of statelessness determination procedures in accordance with Action 6 of the GAP will lead to new data in countries hosting stateless migrants. Strengthening of civil registration and vital statistics systems in accordance with Action 7 of the GAP also will contribute to the availability of quantitative data. In order to improve quantitative and qualitative data with regard to Action 10 of the Global Action Plan, UNHCR undertakes targeted surveys and studies (including participatory assessments with stateless individuals and groups) to establish the scale of a situation and profile of an affected population. During 2016, six such studies were completed in countries as diverse as Austria and Côte d’Ivoire. 67 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Global Action Plan to End Statelessness, 4 November 2014, available at: http://www. refworld.org/docid/545b47d64.html. 68 For further information on UNHCR’s #IBelong Campaign, please see http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/. UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2016