10. In Palestine, HRDs face severe and systemic restrictions on their work and movement, including travel bans, arbitrary detention, home raids and confiscation of documentation by the colonial Israeli regime. Amid the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, many HRDs documenting Israeli crimes, human rights violations, or advocating for justice face intimidation, constant surveillance, and criminalization of their activism. In the Dominican Republic, Dominican HRDs of Haitian descent have also faced intimidation, arbitrary detentions and risks to deportations. Civil society actors working to defend the rights of these communities have also been subjected to harassment, both online and offline, as well as attempts to delegitimize their work. Due to restrictive legislation and security threats, civil society actors increasingly rely on the development of informal support networks and collaboration with regional and international organizations to amplify the voices of vulnerable populations.1 Lack of legal status, travel restrictions and other basic services 11. Stateless HRDs who wish to travel to attend UN sessions, trainings or regional convenings frequently cannot obtain passports. Even those with temporary travel documents risk being denied visas, refused entry at borders, detained or deported because their stateless status arouses suspicion. In many cases, virtual engagement becomes the only alternative, which, is not often an option for HRDs to raise their voices, and when it is an option, interpretation should be offered for language inclusivity. 12. At the same time, the interconnected nature of current administrative, legal and economic systems continues to reinforce exclusion for those without documents, highlighting the urgent need for systemic change to break these barriers and ensure genuine and equal participation. For instance, stateless people’s legal and banking status often means they are unable to be compensated for the work they carry out even when funding is available. 13. Although there is a growing effort to include more stateless people in decision-making spaces, genuine participation remains challenging. Too often, affected people are invited merely to share personal stories rather than to meaningfully shape policies or solutions. This process requires sustained support, especially for those who have had limited access to education, along with trauma-informed and protective approaches that prevent re-traumatization. As activism itself is a form of empowerment, it is vital for HRDs to engage in practical activities that allow them to experience agency, build confidence, believe in their talents and see tangible outcomes from their work. Financial insecurity and funding precarity 14. A defining challenge for HRDs working on statelessness is chronic financial insecurity. Statelessness has historically been a neglected issue for donors, meaning that HRDs in this field often operate on the margins, with little or no predictable funding. Unlike other areas of the human rights sector which attract sustained donor interest, HRDs working on statelessness are typically reliant on short-term, ad hoc grants that fail to cover core costs or long-term strategies. Stateless HRDs face additional barriers: the absence of legal identity documents often prevents formal registration, barring access to donor compliance systems such as bank accounts and due diligence checks. This results in a profoundly unequal playing field where impacted-person-led 1 Reference by partner organisations in Libya where the main risks faced include restrictive laws, security harassment, lack of protection, and social risks such as stigma and media smear campaigns. 3