16 Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC) were also interviewed. Officials from these institutions were interviewed because they represent the international community in Ghana and often work to address refugee, migration, human rights, and statelessness issues. Interviews with populations at risk of statelessness were conducted by focusing on a border community — Aflao in the Volta Region. For migrants at risk of statelessness, the study focused on Fulanis in Agogo, Hohoe, and Accra; and Zongo communities in Ho, Hohoe, Tamale, Kumasi, and Accra. Former Liberian refugees at Budumburam in the Central Region of Ghana and former Sierra Leonean refugees, largely located in a refugee camp in the Western Region, were also identified as populations at risk of statelessness in Ghana, and interviews were conducted with segments of these populations. Interviews were conducted using both structured and unstructured questionnaires. Interviewees were selected using the purposive sampling technique, which involved the questioning of persons whom the researchers identified as being stateless or at risk of statelessness. The number of interviewees varied from 15 to 20, depending on how many people were willing to participate in the study in each location. To assess the practices of state institutions, the researchers interviewed officials in five of Ghana’s ten regions: the Greater Accra Region, the Ashanti Region, the Northern Region, the Central Region, and the Volta Region. The interviews were held in the capitals of these selected regions with officials with sufficient authority within each institution to provide accurate and relevant information on their mandate and processes. All interviews were conducted with the aid of questionnaires, and the answers given by the respondents were noted and incorporated into this study. In addition, a stakeholders’ workshop was held to validate the findings of the study. Journal on Migration and Human Security 8(1) De Jure and De Facto Statelessness Article 15 of the United Nations’ UDHR enshrines the universal norm that “everyone has a right to a nationality.” The United Nations adopted two conventions that provide practical steps to assist in realizing the right to nationality. The first was the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (“1954 UN Convention”). It ensures the enjoyment of human rights by stateless persons by establishing an internationally recognized status for them. The 1954 UN Convention remains the only international treaty aimed specifically at regulating standards of treatment for stateless persons. The second convention, the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (“1961 UN Convention”), establishes an international framework to ensure the right of every person to a nationality by establishing safeguards to prevent statelessness at birth and later in life. In the strict sense, a person is stateless if he or she is not a national of any state under the operation of its law. This definition of statelessness is known as de jure statelessness because it arises from the absence of the formal bond of nationality, in which nationality is determined according to a state’s domestic laws. De jure stateless persons are persons who are not nationals of any state, either because at birth or subsequently they were not given any nationality, or because during their lifetime they lost their own nationality and did not acquire a new one. The operation of a state’s domestic laws may thus leave a person without any nationality. The concept of de jure statelessness has been criticized as being too narrow. Some individuals technically possess a nationality but are unable to enjoy its benefits because they cannot prove their nationality; or because the state of their nationality is not able or willing to offer them protection; or due to practical considerations such as cost, circumstances of civil disorder, or fear of persecution. This is termed de facto statelessness. For example, women and children who have been subjected to human trafficking are often held in a foreign country in conditions akin to slavery, with no access to their passLegal and Institutional Frameworks ports and no practical possibility of seeking the protecRelating to Statelessness tion of their national state. In de facto stateless This section of the article examines the legal and institu- situations, the person is a national of some state but lacks tional frameworks relating to statelessness. Statelessness the protection of the laws of that state (Milbrandt 2012). Without citizenship, stateless people may lack legal as a concept is defined, followed by a brief examination of the international, regional, and national legal and protection and sometimes the right to vote, and they often lack access to education, employment, healthcare, institutional frameworks on statelessness.