AHMR African Human Mobilty Review - Volume 8 No 3, SEP-DEC 2022 I. INTRODUCTION Statelessness is when a person is not recognised by any country as a citizen, and they cannot call any country their own. South Africa is reported to have many undocumented migrants, who are either stateless or vulnerable to becoming stateless. This population includes both adults and young people under the age of 18. Due to lack of country affiliation and subsequent protection, stateless persons have been referred to as ‘outcasts from the global political system of states’, 1 as ‘legal ghosts’,2 illegal immigrants,3 counted as ‘undifferentiated aliens’,4 as ‘non-individuals’, ‘nowhere people’ and ‘nowhere individuals’ as they do not have a country to call home. Stateless adults and children experience challenges when they try to access fundamental rights and services and they are at risk of marginalisation, discrimination, and insecurity.5 Both de facto and de jure stateless people are unable to access the privileges, services, protections, and rights that citizens can demand from their governments.6 Globally, there is an increasing number of persons who are stateless or at risk of becoming stateless and this is an issue of concern.7 8 Numerous studies have been conducted on statelessness from legal and rights-based perspectives, yet there have been very few connections and exploration into the mental health of stateless people, their inability to thrive and the trauma that they experience due to their precarious status.9 10 The interconnected nature of rights violations for stateless persons means that the siloed responses are likely to produce fewer ideal and sustainable outcomes. What is required is a comprehensive, integrated response to issues affecting stateless persons, so that the rights of all stateless adults and children are fulfilled. This includes understanding the role of daily or environmental stressors and systematic marginalisation in mitigating mental health symptoms in people who are stateless. UNHCR ‘The problem of statelessness has become a live issue again’ UNHCR Department of International Protection, Geneva (1996) para 2, available at www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/3b837ec14.html, accessed on 04 November 2022. 2 UNHCR ‘The world’s stateless people. Questions and answers’ UNHCR Media Relations and Public Information Service, Geneva (2007) 1 at 5, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/47a707900.html, accessed on 06 November 2022. 3 Roshni Chakraborty & Jacqueline Bhabha ‘Fault lines of refugee exclusion: Statelessness, gender, and COVID-19 in South Asia’ (2021) 23(1) Health and Human Rights Journal 237 at 238, available at https://www.hhrjournal.org/2021/05/ fault-lines-of-refugee-exclusion-statelessness-gender-and-covid-in-south-asia/, accessed on 06 April 2022. 4 Bill Frelick & Maureen Lynch ‘Statelessness: A forgotten human rights crisis’ (2005) FMR 65 at 66, available at https:// www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/textOnlyContent/FMR/24/39.html, accessed on 06 April 2022. 5 Laura van Waas ‘The children of irregular migrants: A stateless generation?’ (2007) 25(3) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 437 at 439. 6 Roshni Chakraborty & Jacqueline Bhabha (2021) op cit note 3 237 at 238. 7 Jacqueline Bhabha ‘Arendt’s children: Do today’s migrant children have a right to have rights?’ (2009) 31(2) Human Rights Quarterly 410 at 411. 8 Maureen Lynch ‘Lives on hold: The human cost of statelessness’ Refugees International (2005) 1 at 2, available at https:// www.refworld.org/docid/47a6eba00.html, accessed on 09 November 2022. 9 Andrew Riley, Andrea Varner, Peter Ventevogel, MM Taimur Hasan & Courtney Welton-Mitchell ‘Daily stressors, trauma exposure, and mental health among stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’ (2017) 54(3) Transcultural Psychiatry 304 at 304. 10 Aisha K Yousafzai, Joan Lombardi, Erum Mariam, Tina Hyder & Zarlasht Halaimzai ‘Statelessness and young children’ (2022) 4(1) The Statelessness & Citizenship Review 154 at 155, available at https://statelessnessandcitizenshipreview.com/ index.php/journal/article/view/415, accessed on 09 November 2022. 1 42