A Place to Call Home: Shining a Light on Unmet Legal Need for Stateless Children in Australia Established in 2018, RACS’ Stateless Children Project is Australia’s first and only legal service dedicated to providing assistance to stateless children in obtaining Australian citizenship. RACS is one of Australia’s leading refugee legal centres providing free, dedicated legal assistance to people seeking asylum. As an independent community legal centre, RACS has been protecting and advocating for human rights for people seeking asylum, who have made it to Australia for over 30 years. Over this time, RACS has assisted hundreds of stateless people to apply for asylum. Through working with key external partners also working in this space, RACS identified a specific need to assist stateless children born in Australia apply for citizenship, under domestic legislation. The Refugee Advice & Casework Service (RACS) and Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness have partnered to conduct groundbreaking research into the legal needs, barriers, and gaps experienced by stateless refugee children and their families in accessing and acquiring Australian citizenship. The ‘A Place to Call Home’ Project aims to educate stateless community groups about any potential entitlement Australian-born children may have to citizenship, as well as link them to RACS’ Stateless Children Project for expert legal assistance. The project also aims to identify the legal need and potential legal assistance models for stateless refugee children nationally across Australia. I hope for better for my children.’ — Amir, stateless Palestinian father of four Melbourne Law School’s Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness was established in 2018 with the objective of undertaking research, teaching, and engagement activities aimed at reducing statelessness and protecting the rights of stateless people in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region, and as appropriate more broadly. The ‘A Place to Call Home’ Project is led by Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness Research Fellow Katie Robertson, who has extensive experience working with stateless children through her role as a lawyer and is supported by Sarah Dale, who supervises the legal service delivery. The ‘A Place to Call Home’ Project also documents the lived experience of statelessness with the aim of providing human insight into the everyday challenges experienced by stateless children and their families in Australia — in their own words. A Place to Call Home – Shining a Light on Unmet Legal Need for Stateless Children in Australia ‘Being stateless has been a huge source of sadness for me in my life. At times it has made me question my very existence and made me wonder why my parents chose to bring me into this world. I’ve never felt like I have a future. Wherever I’ve gone, I have no rights. 8 A Place to Call Home – Shining a Light on Unmet Legal Need for Stateless Children in Australia 9