conferences with the Danish Refugee Council in 2012. In addition, the Danish Red Cross, which is responsible for accommodation centers had been contacted with a view to make it possible to refer rejected asylum-seekers to the Danish Refugee Council for further information. Moreover, in September 2012, a majority of the political parties in Parliament entered into a common asylum agreement according to which the Refugee Council, among other things, should make a particular effort as to advising newcomers about the importance of providing correct information in their asylum cases. Timely and complete information and advice were considered vital in order to avoid situations where asylum-seekers act against their own interest due to sheer ignorance about the rules governing their situation.209 The agreement was implemented in 2013, but has been rolled back in 2016 as part of the former Government’s Asylum Package II. 3.4.2.2 The right to work and related rights As noted above, the recognition of an individual as stateless “triggers the ‘lawfully staying’ rights” of the 1954 Convention.210 Among these rights are the right to work (Article 17), practice of liberal profession (Article 19), and labor and social security rights (Article 24). Article 17 provides in its entirety: Wage-earning employment 1. The Contracting States shall accord to stateless persons lawfully staying in their territory treatment as favorable as possible and, in any event, not less favorable that that accorded to aliens generally in the same circumstances,211 as regards the right to engage in wage-earning employment. 2. The Contracting States shall give sympathetic consideration to assimilating the rights of all stateless persons with regard to wage-earning employment to those of nationals, and in particular of those stateless persons who have entered their territory pursuant to programmes of labor recruitment or under immigration schemes. There is no express provision in Danish law or policy that grants a stateless person the right to work on grounds of his or her statelessness. Hence, also in this regard, stateless persons are treated like other foreigners with a similar residence right. Consequently, stateless asylum-seekers are – as is the case with other asylum-seekers – in principle prohibited from working in Denmark, as long as they have not gained a right to work based on a residence permit or on another basis.212 209 See above Section 2.3.2 on the need for information and advice; see in particular the case of the stateless Bidoon from Kuwait on the need for proper counselling. 210 Handbook, para 150. For a more thorough discussion of the lawfully staying rights, see ibid., paras 136-137. 211 Article 6, the term “in the same circumstances” provides: ‘For the purpose of this Convention, the term “in the same circumstances” implies that any requirements (including requirements as to length and conditions of sojourn or residence) which the particular individual would have to fulfil for the enjoyment of the right in question, if he were not a stateless person, must be fulfilled by him, with the exception of requirements which by their nature a stateless person is incapable of fulfilling’.  212 54 Once an asylum-seeker (stateless or not stateless) has been recognized as a refugee and thereby acquired a residence permit, the said person is allowed to work (in jobs, which are not reserved for nationals). However, pursuant to Section 14 (a) of the Aliens Act, upon application, the Danish Immigration Service may decide that an asylum applicant who meets certain specific requirements may accept employment in Denmark on ordinary conditions of pay and employment without a work permit until said person is issued with a residence permit, departs from Denmark or is returned. Mapping Statelessness in Denmark