Jirair, 19, Georgia. © U N H C R / K . S H A R TAVA Stateless children recounted situations where their families had incurred serious debts after borrowing from friends and neighbours to pay medical bills. King (19), from the Akha hill-tribe community in Thailand, remembers when his brother, also stateless, had a serious car accident: “For him to be treated, we had to pay the foreigners’ price. My mum borrowed a lot of money from a neighbour. She is still paying it back.” Pratap (15) from Malaysia recalls how, after severely injuring his leg playing football, his lack of nationality was still the first consideration for the hospital: “I felt angry because no one wanted to help me, even when I was clearly in pain. They scrutinized my status even though it was an emergency. Is it my fault that I don’t have a nationality? I was born in this country like any other Malaysian. Why do I have to suffer this way?” 14 Risk-taking, humiliation and psychological scars For some, seeking assistance or loans to access health care was not even an option. Unable to provide the necessary documentation to obtain treatment and unable to afford the high costs, the family of Jirair (19) in Georgia took the risk of treating him at home despite the seriousness of his injuries. “When I was younger,” says Jirair, “I broke my leg. Even though I needed to, we didn’t go to the emergency department of the hospital because we knew that without [nationality] documentation we would not be admitted. I was treated at home. I took a long time to heal – it was really hard”. The constant humiliation of not being able to prove one’s eligibility for treatment was raised as a significant impediment by a number of participants. Elena, a stateless mother in the Dominican Republic, S TAT E L E S S N E S S R E P O R T remembers the battle she waged to convince the medical staff at the hospital to help her child: “It is humiliating not being able to present documents. Even at the hospital I was told that I couldn’t get treatment for my baby because we didn’t have documents. They only helped us after long persuasion.” Kavita (22) in Malaysia explains how being stateless made her hesitant to get medical attention, even when it was clear that she needed it: “Lately I have been coughing a lot. And there has been blood. I visited a clinic and took medication but it didn’t work. The clinic told me to go to the hospital, but to go there is very embarrassing. They ask a million questions about where I am from because I don’t have proof of nationality. They are suspicious and it makes me feel like I am stealing something. So I can’t go.” Tragically, a childhood of living with statelessness appeared to have extracted a serious psychological toll on a significant number of the participants. Individuals frequently described themselves as “invisible”, “alien”, “living in a shadow”, “like a street dog” and “worthless”. Others, like Paloma (16) in the Dominican Republic described the paradoxical sentiments of belonging yet being excluded. Says she: “I feel Dominican, regardless of documents, but people see me as less Dominican because of my lack of documents.” In Malaysia, a dejected Kavita has thought of drastic actions. “Sometimes I feel that I should attempt suicide,” she says. Only thinking of her family has prevented her from taking that route. Leli (19), who had been stateless since birth but recently acquired Italian citizenship, spoke of her difficulties in coming to terms with her new identity as a national: “Even though I now have Italian nationality,” she says, “being stateless stays inside you – like a permanent mark.” S TAT E L E S S N E S S R E P O R T 15