UUM Journal of Legal Studies, 13, No. 1 (January) 2022, pp: 345–380 a stateless person. A stateless person might also be a refugee if he / she has fled his/her country due to the fear of persecution and not being considered as a citizen by any state10. The UNHCR’s statistics on statelessness revealed that the it has taken into account the nonrefugee stateless population, but not the stateless people who were also refugees. However, this must be noted in light of the de facto concept, which may vary according to the situation of statelessness in different countries. The two concepts, refugee status and statelessness are linked to each other. In a few instances, a refugee could also be a stateless person if that person met the definition under Article 1 of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the definition of Article 1 of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (UNESCO Report, 2018). A stateless person might have remained within a particular host state without crossing the international border. Other stateless persons or children in some countries with national laws might have protection under the respective international refugee laws of that said country instead of stateless conventions, provided the state was a signatory member country to the 1951 Refugee Convention, or the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. However, to date in Malaysia, there has been no specific law and policy to ensure legal protection for stateless children. (iv) Lack of Accurate Data and Statistics on Stateless Children There is no accurate data to identify the number of stateless people and children in Malaysia that will enable the government to have any reliable record about stateless children or people residing within the country. Despite that, sources have indicated that there were more than 290,000 stateless children as of November 2016, and the number rose in 2018 to approximately 12,350 stateless persons residing in Peninsular Malaysia and 450,000 in Sabah (SUHAKAM report, 2018). According to the UNHCR, such statistics revealed that statelessness was certainly a widespread problem. It was further discovered that in 2019, there were approximately 80,000 Filipino Muslim refugees in the Sabah, and this was inclusive of an estimated 10,000 children known to be stateless (NST, February 13, 2019). 10 Article 1 of the 1951 Refugee Convention 356