Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals In the Dominican Republic, mothers who are undocumented or who are deemed to have an irregular migratory status (whether or not this is in fact the case and sometimes even if the father is a Dominican national) are often unable to register the births of their children, meaning that they may be excluded from public education, especially secondary and tertiary education. To remain in school beyond the age of 18, they must present an identity document (cédula), which also depends on birth registration.90 I don’t know what to think because my future has been destroyed. As a poor person, you work hard in school to be someone. Very early I had a vision that at twenty I would finish high school, go to college, and earn a degree and by 25 have a family. Now I am 25 and I have not even begun. (Juan, denied a Dominican cédula since turning eighteen in 2007).91 Even where all children can access birth registration, stateless children may be unable to access higher education, including accessing the funding needed to enable schooling to continue at higher levels – often restricted to nationals of the country concerned, or requiring a foreign passport and higher fees for enrolment. In Kenya, stateless children are generally able to access primary school, but the difficulties are much greater at higher levels of schooling.92 This is also the case in Thailand: I get pretty good grades. Maybe I am even at the top of the class. But every time there is a scholarship, it is given to someone who has a national ID card. (Patcharee, 15, a stateless girl from the Thai Highlands).93 I have two younger sisters and one younger brother. Although we can go to elementary school, further study at higher levels is impossible. If you do not have a Thai ID, you are not allowed to go to university in Thailand. (Stateless teenager from the Thai Highlands).94 A birth certificate may not be sufficient even for primary school, however, if there is a distinction between different types of certificate for nationals and non-nationals. In Malaysia the law does not guarantee the right to education for the children of irregular migrants, a definition which includes those with parents who are stateless. Before 1997, all children were entitled to attend government primary schools, regardless of nationality, provided they held a birth certificate; but from 1997 “foreigner” has been written on birth certificates if parents cannot prove Malaysian citizenship, and since 2002, schools have systematically excluded “foreign” and undocumented children.95 In 2016, there were almost 300,000 children born in Malaysia who did not have Malaysian citizenship or the recognized citizenship of any other country;96 90. Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute Fact-Finding Project, “Left behind: how statelessness in the Dominican Republic limits children’s access to education” (Washington, D.C., 2014), https://www.right-to-education.org/resource/left-behind-how-statelessness-dominican-republic-limits-childrensaccess-education. 91. Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute Fact-Finding Project, 37. 92. Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and UNHCR, “Out of the shadows: towards ensuring the rights of stateless persons and persons at risk of statelessness in Kenya” (Nairobi, 2010), chap. 4: The right to education, www.unhcr.org/4e8338d49.pdf. 93. UNHCR, “I am here, I belong”, 9. 94. Kitchanapaibul et al., “Status of the stateless population in Thailand”, 7. 95. Linda A. Lumayag, “A question of access: education needs of undocumented children in Malaysia”, Asian Studies Review 40, No. 2 (2016): 192–210, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2016.1158238; Catherine Allerton, “Impossible children: illegality and excluded belonging among children of migrants in Sabah, East Malaysia”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44, No. 7 (2018): 1081–97, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1357464. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Vernor Munoz Villalobos. Addendum: Mission to Malaysia, United Nations Human Rights Council, 20 March 2009, UN Doc. A/HRC/11/8/Add-2-EN https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/651615?ln=en. 96. “Almost 300,000 stateless children in Malaysia”, Free Malaysia Today, 31 October 2016, www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/10/31/ almost-300000-stateless-children-in-malaysia/. 33