Statelessness as a Product of Slippery Statecraft In line with the emphasis on innocence, the campaign has highlighted child statelessness (actions 2 and 7). 84 A 2015 report entitled I am Here, I Belong: The Urgent Need to End Child Statelessness conveys a sense of urgency — 'with a stateless child being born somewhere in the world at least every 10 minutes, this is a problem that is growing. In countries hosting the 20 largest stateless populations, at least 70,000 stateless children are born each year’. 85 It goes on to strategically link the issue to development goals, such as child vaccination, access to medical care and education and youth access to employment. 86 The report appeals to moral arguments about children missing out on the experience of being a child, as well as the human right of every child to a nationality. 87 Again, UNHCR insists that the problem is relatively easy to solve, preventable, straightforward, since the causes are simply discrimination, gaps in nationality laws and lack of birth registration. 88 UNHCR has partnered with the United Nations Children’s Fund (‘UNICEF’) to promote universal birth registration; the two agencies convene the global Coalition on Every Child’s Right to a Nationality, comprised of international organisations, civil society organisations and legal clinics, which aims to ‘develop, expand and strengthen international cooperation to raise awareness about and combat the hidden problem of child statelessness’. 89 As for the link with international migration, UNHCR carefully avoids the thorny issue of irregular migration and the risk of statelessness for children. Campaign materials recognise that most stateless people remain in the country of their birth, which can and does include children of people with precarious citizenship, such as the temporary status forms described above. However, the focus is quite narrow: campaign action 6 calls for granting protection status to the relatively small number of stateless persons who have migrated and facilitating their naturalisation. 90 The 2017 #IBELONG Campaign report focuses on discrimination against minority groups. 91 It points out that discrimination and lack of documentation can be both cause and consequence of statelessness: ‘Lack of such documentary proof can result in a vicious circle, where authorities refuse to recognise an otherwise valid claim to nationality’. 92 Recommended actions to remedy this situation, in line with actions 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8 of the Global Action Plan, are technical in nature (eg ensure universal birth registration; eliminate procedural and practical obstacles to the issuance of nationality documentation). 93 Gender discrimination is framed in similarly technical terms (action 3). 94 UNHCR sees its role as advocate and provider of technical advice as to how to 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 Global Action Plan (n 69) 9, 18. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, I am Here, I Belong: The Urgent Need to End Child Statelessness (Report, November 2015) 1. ibid 2. ibid. ibid. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘IBELONG: Coalition on Every Child’s Right to a Nationality’ <http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/unicef-unhcr-coalition-child-rightnationality/>. Global Action Plan (n 69) 16. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘This is our Home’: Stateless Minorities and Their Search for Citizenship (Report, November 2017). ibid 2. Global Action Plan (n 69) 7, 9, 13, 18, 21. ibid 12. 147