Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals such as refugees, asylum-seekers, stateless persons, migrant workers and victims of international trafficking, regardless of legal status and documentation”.77 In its General Recommendation on the Rights of Non-Citizens, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination also called on states to “Remove obstacles that prevent the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights by non-citizens, notably in the areas of education, housing, employment and health.”78 The impact of statelessness on individual access to health care and education The impact of statelessness and arbitrary denial of nationality documents on access to formal employment, social security, health care, housing, education and other rights is well documented across many regions of the world.79 In particular, there are very many reports on the impact of statelessness on the rights of children, including their access to health care and education.80 Statelessness and lack of identity documentation compounds the exclusion from access to these rights faced by members of minority groups.81 These impacts arise in all countries, not only those in receipt of development assistance. For example, in Italy, Portugal and Spain, statelessness is “an often insurmountable barrier to obtaining an education, renting a house, registering property, finding formal employment, having full access to health and social protection schemes, moving freely or starting a family”.82 Access to health care and the impact of statelessness on health Statelessness has an effect on individual health in three main ways.83 • First, and most obviously, access to health care, especially health services that go beyond immediate emergency treatment, is often conditional on holding documents proving legal status; particularly the status of citizen or legal resident. Stateless people are often unable to produce such documents.84 Even if not formally excluded, stateless people may in some contexts be reluctant to approach health-care services because they fear being reported to immigration services or assume that they will be rejected. • Secondly, health and well-being are substantially determined by a person’s social conditions. Stateless people often suffer substandard housing, income poverty, poor working conditions, low literacy levels and low status. • Thirdly, stateless persons are often members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities that face generalized discrimination in society. Structural exclusion, racism and vilification, including hate crimes, can have a serious impact on mental and physical health.85 77. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 20: “Non-discrimination in economic, social and cultural rights” (Article 2, Para 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/20, 25 May 2009, para. 30. 78. UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “General Recommendation XXX: Discrimination against non-citizens” (Geneva: United Nations, 5 August 2004), www.refworld.org/docid/45139e084.html. 79. Weissbrodt, “Examples of practices in regard to non-citizens”; UN Secretary-General, “Human rights and arbitrary deprivation of nationality”, UN Doc. A/HRC/19/43 (Geneva: United Nations, 19 December 2011), https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/19/43. 80. UNHCR, “Under the radar and under-protected: the urgent need to protect stateless children’s rights” (Geneva: UNHCR, 2012), www.refworld.org/ docid/514acd3e2.html; UNHCR, “I am here, I belong: the urgent need to end childhood statelessness” (Geneva: UNHCR, November 2015), www. unhcr.org/ibelong/the-urgent-need-to-end-childhood-statelessness/; UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Discrimination against women on nationality related matters, including the impact on children”, UN Doc. A/HRC/23/23 (Geneva: UN Human Rights Council, 15 March 2013), www.refworld.org/docid/51a5bdf74.html; UN Secretary-General, “Impact of the arbitrary deprivation of nationality on the enjoyment of the rights of children concerned, and existing laws and practices on accessibility for children to acquire nationality, inter alia, of the country in which they are born, if they otherwise would be stateless”, UN Doc. A/HRC/31/29 (Geneva: UN Human Rights Council, 16 December 2015), https://undocs.org/Home/ Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F31%2F29. 81. UNHCR, “This is our home”; UNHCR and UNICEF, “Minority children and statelessness” (United Nations, 2017), www.unhcr.org/ibelong/minoritychildren-statelessness/. 82. UNHCR, “The impact of statelessness on access to human rights in Italy, Portugal and Spain” (Geneva: United Nations, June 2019), www.unhcr.org/it/ wp-content/uploads/sites/97/2020/08/UNHCR_Impact-of-Statelessness-ITPTES_def_web.pdf. 83. Adapted from Nannie Sköld, “Understanding statelessness and health through social science”, in Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health, ed. Pranee Liamputtong (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023), 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96778-9_123-1. 84. Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Together we did! a reflection on the impact of the COVID-19 Emergency Statelessness Fund (CESF) Consortium”, February 2023, https://files.institutesi.org/Together_We_Did_CESF_Report.pdf. 85. Marie Claire Van Hout, Charlotte Bigland and Nina Murray, “Scoping the impact of COVID-19 on the nexus of statelessness and health in Council of Europe member states”, Journal of Migration and Health 4 (2021): 100053, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmh.2021.100053; UNHCR, “This is our home”; Ajwang’ Warria and Victor Chikadzi, “Statelessness, trauma and mental well-being: implication for practice, research and advocacy”, African Human Mobility Review 8, No. 3 (2022): 41–55. 31