STATELESSNESS, DISCRIMINATION AND MARGINALISATION OF ROMA IN ALBANIA 1. Introducing the Interviewees For the purposes of writing this report, 14 Roma individuals and families who experience statelessness or the risk of statelessness were interviewed. Below are short case studies presenting their stories.1 Adelina is a mother of three children. She and her husband, who are Albanian citizens, and their eldest child moved to Greece and lived there for almost ten years, but they had no legal status there. Their eldest child had been born in Albania and was registered in the civil status office of Albania. During their stay in Greece, Adelina gave birth to two more children. Due to their parents’ irregular status the birth of the children was registered as a matter of fact with key information, such as their names, missing. When their children were nine, six and five years old, they returned to Albania. Adelina insists on the fact that she is extremely poor, she and her husband do not receive any social welfare, and their children are not accepted in school and kindergarten because they do not have any valid documentation. Their Greek birth certificates are not accepted in Albania as they do not include the children’s names and are not in the required legal format which is accepted by the civil status office. They have been left in limbo. Adelina says that all she wants is for their children to be registered so they can get help from the state. Kujtim and Rovena are Albanian citizens. They are married and live in a city in the south of Albania. A lot of Albanians from this city, including many Roma, travel to Greece to work. During one of their stays in Greece one of their children was born. She is now three years old and is at risk of statelessness, as she does not have proper documentation – her birth certificate is in Greek and inaccurately records her parents’ information. Like Adelina’s children, she cannot access kindergarten or healthcare. Ilmi and Lule – both Albanian citizens – are the parents of a young girl who is unregistered and at risk of statelessness. They too irregularly lived in Greece, where Lule gave birth to their daughter in a maternity ward. She received a vaccination book and a certificate from the hospital. She never went to the civil status office to verify the registration and she does not possess any birth registration document. Greek nationality law says that children born in Greece whose parents have lived legally and permanently in Greece for five years can acquire Greek nationality. As they were not legal residents, their child cannot acquire Greek citizenship. Lule wants her daughter to be registered in Albania, but both Ilmi and Lule are aware that they do not possess the necessary documentation to register the birth of their child there. Mimoza faces a similar problem. Her daughter was born in Greece, where Mimoza was living irregularly. Due to her poverty, after her child was born, she left the maternity ward without paying the medical fees. As a result, she did not receive any document. After some time, she went to the civil status office and obtained a birth certificate for her daughter. However, this birth certificate did not record the name of the girl. The authorities refused to record the child’s name 1 Fictional names have been used to protect the identity of the interviewees. 3