6 « IMPACT OF STATELESSNESS ON THE LIVES OF STATELESS PERSONS Interviewer: “You said you’ve been stateless for over 25 years. What obstacles does it present to you in your everyday life?” Participant: “You should ask me what obstacles it doesn’t present. I’d say it affects everything.” The above comment illustrates the scope and complexity of the impact statelessness has on everyday life. An analysis of these impacts has been undertaken using the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.98 The lowest tier includes physiological needs, followed by security and safety and the need of belonging and love. Higher tiers include esteem needs such as prestige and a feeling of accomplishment, while self-actualisation lies at the top. With respect to their situation, the stateless persons interviewed during the research most often raised issues pertaining to the three lowest levels: (1) physiological needs; (2) security and safety needs and (3) belonging and love needs. The discussed topics were, thus, associated with work, livelihood, housing, health and social care and family life. These are all basic needs. In contrast, there was an apparent lack of articulated needs at the highest levels (needs of prestige, self-esteem and self-actualisation). If the interviewed persons mentioned these topics at all, they did so only in the form of projections – usually wishes and dreams for the future, which they seldom believed in, such as obtaining further education or performing skilled jobs. 6.1 Livelihood and employment The possibilities of employment and ensuring livelihood depended on the residence status of each individual interviewed. Two basic categories of persons could be distinguished. The first category included persons who had a certain type of residence permit and a corresponding legal status in the Czech Republic. Persons with a residence permit, depending on the type of permit, may be employed either with a work permit issued by the Labour Office or without further limitations. The latter applies to asylum-seekers six months after lodging the application. This category of interviewed persons did not mention major concerns in relation to employment or running a business. The second category involved persons living in the country without a residence permit. They were, therefore, not allowed to work or perform other gainful activity. This meant that they either did not work at all or worked occasionally without the relevant work permit. Some interviewed persons have been in this situation for a long time. Even if they had initially stayed and worked in the country legally, they had fallen into an irregular status due to various circumstances (often related to their statelessness) and were forced to make a living as unregistered workers or they had completely lost their source of livelihood because their former employers refused to employ them without a work permit. The interviews with stateless persons revealed that the situation of stateless persons working without the relevant permit was in many aspects analogical to the situation of other undocumented foreign workers. Their jobs lacked stability; they worked in disadvantaged conditions which made them vulnerable and prone to exploitation. The main difference was that stateless persons did not have any options to resolve their situation, options which are 98 Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs was formulated by the American psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow in 1943. UNHCR Czech Republic 39