Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals stateless children were also disproportionately excluded from online education during the COVID pandemic, due to lack of access to resources and technology, as well as anxiety and depression.97 In Lebanon, stateless persons who hold a document indicating that their nationality is “under study” (the qayd al dars card) can access primary and secondary school education, but have no access to public health care; unregistered people with only a local authority identity document (or none at all), can only access education with formal authorization of the ministry of education, and also have no access to public health care.98 Among the unregistered stateless people surveyed in the northern province of Akkar, 39 per cent had never accessed any schooling (almost three quarters of the Dom community, and one quarter of the Bedouin), compared to 15 per cent of those recognized as Lebanese nationals.99 In Kuwait, access to services, including education, requires valid legal status. Therefore, some Bidoon100 children without valid registration cards may not have access to either the public or private education system.101 Children of stateless parents may also be restricted in accessing education by the inability of the parents to migrate for work. In Viet Nam, for example, remittances from migrant workers significantly increased the likelihood of children being in school, and this effect was even stronger for domestic remittances than international.102 Children of the 30,000 stateless people estimated to live in Viet Nam, who lack identity documents and legal residency, would be unable to access these benefits.103 The impact of lack of access to health care and education on stateless communities In the worst cases, such as the situation of the stateless Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh, the impact of statelessness is merely one further factor in a comprehensive state of destitution: “Mental health is poor, proper hygiene conditions are lacking, malnutrition is endemic, and physical/sexual abuse is high.”104 Rohingya children already faced significant barriers to quality education while living in Rakhine State in Myanmar; as refugees in Bangladesh, despite some efforts to improve access, the lack of formal education available to more recent arrivals with the status of “forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals” is “creating a “lost generation” of youth who will be illiterate, jobless, and lack the life skills necessary for their future.”105 Even in less extreme situations, the impacts of widespread statelessness reach those members of the community who themselves have a documented nationality, including difficulties in accessing health and education services, which are located far from the communities most affected by statelessness: this is the case among Roma communities in the Western Balkans, for example.106 Where many are excluded from education, the impact is also felt by the person’s family, who cannot be supported by individuals who have better employment prospects, and by the wider community, who cannot benefit from the skills and financial support of those who are educated – especially at higher level – and return to serve in their place of origin or to represent their interests in policy debates concerning resource allocation. 97. Tharani Loganathan et al., “Education for non-citizen children in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study”, PLoS ONE 16, No. 12 (2021): e0259546, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259546. 98. UNHCR and Siren Associates, “Mapping and understanding statelessness in Akkar”, 54. Unregistered stateless persons may also be issued a “summary of residency” document by General Security which allows them to access education. 99. UNHCR and Siren Associates, 28. 100. “Bidoon” is short for bidoon jinsiyya, or “without nationality”, the term used for Kuwaiti residents without recognition of Kuwaiti or any other nationality. 101. Amnesty International, “‘I don’t have a future’: stateless Kuwaitis and the right to education”, August 2023, www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ mde17/6990/2023/en/. 102. Michele Binci and Gianna Claudia Giannelli, “Internal versus international migration: impacts of remittances on child labor and schooling in Vietnam”, International Migration Review 52, No. 1 (2018): 43–65, https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12267. See also Michele Binci, “The impacts of remittances on child labour and schooling” (blog post), Oxford Policy Management, June 2018, www.opml.co.uk/blog/the-impacts-of-remittances-on-child-labour-andschooling. 103. “UNHCR welcomes steps by Viet Nam to tackle statelessness”, UNHCR, 21 December 2018 https://reliefweb.int/report/viet-nam/unhcr-welcomessteps-viet-nam-tackle-statelessness. 104. Abul Milton et al., “Trapped in statelessness: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh”, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14, No. 8 (2017): 942, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14080942. 105. Robin E. Al-Haddad, Kendra L. Duran, and Saleh Ahmed, “A lost generation: perpetual education insecurity among the Rohingya”, Race Ethnicity and Education 25, no. 6 (2022): 874–900, https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2022.2069738. 106. European Network on Statelessness, European Roma Rights Centre and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Roma belong”, 45–46. 34