2 1 A CATALYST FOR ACTION: WORKING TO ADDRESS STATELESSNESS IN EUROPE ANNUAL REPORT 2017 1 1 MESSAGE FROM OUR DIRECTOR Everyone has the right to a nationality Statelessness has again been in the news this past year. The appalling images and stories of Rohingya men, women and children fleeing Myanmar are a sobering reminder of how statelessness continues to cause forced displacement across the globe, the origins of this crisis which trace back to a 1982 discriminatory nationality law. Yet nationality-stripping is again on the rise including in our region, both as a national-security measure and as a tool to silence political dissent, such as in Turkey. And in various other ways, policies of exclusion and discriminatory laws continue to condemn thousands to living without a nationality in Europe. According to Eurostat, 30,000 asylum seekers arriving in the EU during 2016 were recorded as being stateless or of ’unknown nationality’. This is unsurprising when you consider that 12 of the 28 top countries of origin of refugees have large in-situ stateless populations and/ or gender discriminatory laws that prevent women passing on nationality to their children. This is particularly alarming given that most European states lack functioning statelessness determination procedures, or adequate safeguards to grant nationality to children born on their territory who would otherwise be stateless. Our research has shown that a failure to identify statelessness masks the true scale of the problem and leaves many stateless refugees and migrants in legal limbo or languishing in immigration detention. This report describes how we are responding to these challenges. During 2017 we launched our #LockedInLimbo campaign at a vibrant conference in Budapest. A series of initiatives followed, including a high-profile event in the Palace of the Council of Europe and successful lobbying for principles of protection of stateless people from arbitrary detention to be included in emerging Council of Europe and EU standards. In June we gave evidence at a hearing on statelessness in the European Parliament which came about as a direct result of our #StatelessKids campaign petition, signed by over 22,000 supporters. Over the last year we have also broadened our focus through a new project exploring the link between statelessness and forced migration, and continued our important focus on addressing Roma statelessness through our #RomaBelong project, successfully collaborating with partners to organise a regional conference in Skopje and an event in the European Parliament, and broadening the reach of our membership to include Roma civil society organisations. OUR MISSION The European Network on Statelessness (ENS) is a network of non-governmental organisations, academic initiatives, and individual experts committed to addressing statelessness in Europe. Everyone has the right to a nationality. We believe this must be respected and that those who lack nationality – stateless people – are entitled to full protection. ENS is dedicated to working with stateless people in Europe to advocate for respect of their human rights. We aim to reach our goals through law and policy development, awareness raising, and capacity building. With greater visibility and awareness of statelessness among policymakers and parliamentarians secured through our advocacy and communications work; more evidence of its impact and solutions from our research; a wider membership with larger potential audiences, supporter bases and better connections to stateless communities; and our strengthened relationships with key regional actors, we are in a unique position to now push for reform and to connect policymakers with supporters. We are particularly buoyed by having enjoyed a 20% growth in our membership during 2017, and by having been able to recruit new staff adding expertise to our Secretariat. Hence, we embark with much optimism on the process to prepare our next five-year strategic plan, excited about what we can achieve together during this period. Key to our work going forward will be our Statelessness Index – a new online tool allowing instant comparison and monitoring of law, policy and practice across Europe – which we believe will greatly enhance our ability to hold governments to account. It is something that we are immensely proud of, which has only been possible through the contribution of our members, and is a testament to the progress we have made in raising awareness about statelessness since we founded our Network in 2012. Thank you for your continuing support. CHRIS NASH, DIRECTOR