14 Albarazi development of the family is often found in national legal instruments and often legally encoded in the constitutions. Examples range from Ireland where the Constitution states that: ‘[t]he State, therefore, guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State’4; to the Constitution of the United Arab Emirates which states in Article 15 that: ‘[t]he family is the basis of society. It is founded on morality, religion, ethics and patriotism. The law shall guarantee its existence, safeguard and protect it from corruption.’5 Outside of the legal protection mechanisms, the preservation of family life is often seen by other institutions, such as religious or social ones, as one of the most important structures to preserve. 3 Stateless Persons and the Safeguard of their Family The violation of the right to family unity comes as a consequence of a whole host of other violations of rights that stateless persons are subjected to. There are many ways in which the family structure is threatened by statelessness, such as psychological strains on families and pressure on couples to divorce to solve their status, but this article will focus on three which include the inability of stateless persons to start a family, family unification problems, and the strains of non-existent property rights of families. 3.1 Marriage The ability for a stateless person to get married is often limited, or at times impossible for stateless persons due to a variety of reasons. Severe restrictions on the right to get married can be found in various countries. In Burma, for example, the Rohingya have to follow regulations that mean obtaining permission from certain authorities in order to marry, often by paying them large bribes. The time it takes to receive this permission often takes several years.6 Furthermore, sometimes, these applications for marriage are even Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966; 9, 10, and 22 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; Article 17 of the American Convention on Human Rights 1969 and Article 74 of Additional Protocol 1 of 1977 to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War 1949. 4 Constitution of Ireland, 1937. 5 Constitution of the United Arab Emirates 1971. 6 Human Rights Watch, ‘Burma: Revoke ‘Two-Child Policy’ For Rohingya’ May 2013, http://www. hrw.org/news/2013/05/28/burma-revoke-two-child-policy-rohingya. tilburg law review 19 (2014) 11-19