STATELESSNESS 30 FMR32 The end of Bihari statelessness Khalid Hussain Approximately 160,000 stateless Biharis live in 116 makeshift settlements in Bangladesh. Despite recent developments in voter and ID registration, they continue to live in slum-like conditions, facing regular discrimination. education and health-care facilities hampers community development.1 Some of the camp residents, particularly the younger ones, have been struggling for years to be UNHCR/G M B Akash The people known in Bangladesh as ‘Biharis’ or ‘stranded Pakistanis’ are the Urdu-speaking descendants of Muslims who lived in different Indian provinces but mostly in Bihar and who, at India’s partition in 1947, for Bangladeshi citizens – giving access to 22 basic services. The lack of basic services, such as toilets, washing facilities and garbage disposal and drainage systems, contribute to the appalling conditions faced by Biharis living in the Dhaka settlements. moved to what became East Pakistan. Following the war between West Pakistan and East Pakistan, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971 the Biharis were left behind. As many of them were thought to have supported West Pakistan in the war, they were unwelcome in Bangladesh, were treated as stateless and have faced discrimination ever since. The Bihari camps are mainly in urban areas and are beset by severe overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of basic facilities. The slumlike conditions in these settlements have worsened over the years as the population has grown. With inadequate provision for clean water, waste disposal and sewage systems, there are chronic hygiene problems. Camp residents face discrimination in the job market and a severe lack of recognised as Bangladeshi citizens. Over the last eight years they have filed two petitions with the High Court demanding voting rights. Ten young residents of Geneva Camp filed the first petition in 2001. The High Court declared them to be Bangladeshi citizens and directed the national Election Commission to include their names in the list of voters. Subsequently, the Election Commission included not only the names of the original ten on the list but also the names of residents of other camps. After 1 January 2007, when a new caretaker government was formed in Bangladesh, that list was declared null and void and a newly reconstituted Election Commission was given responsibility for preparing a fresh list of those eligible to vote and for issuing national identity cards – A three-member delegation from the camps, including a member of the Association of Young Generation of Urdu-Speaking Community, Geneva Camp, met the Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh in July 2007 and submitted a petition for the inclusion of camp residents in the new list of voters. On 6 September 2007, the government agreed to give citizenship to those Urduspeaking Biharis born after 1971 or who were under 18 years at the date of the creation of Bangladesh. In November 2007, twenty-three eminent academics, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists, in a joint statement, urged the government to offer citizenship rights, in line with the country’s constitution, to all Urdu-speaking people in camps in Bangladesh. In August 2008, the Election Commission began a drive to register the Urdu-speaking communities in the settlements around Bangladesh. This was an important first step towards integrating these minority communities into Bangladeshi society. Over several days, the Commission employed enumerators to take forms from door to door, registering hundreds of people each day. Now all camp residents are Bangladeshi citizens and all of them have National ID cards. Unmet needs Despite recent progress in voter and ID registration, however, 37 years of non-recognition have left the Biharis living in abject poverty and vulnerable to discrimination. They are still denied access to a Bangladeshi passport. Mustakin, a resident of Geneva Camp, explained: “Last September, I paid 2000 Taka [US$29] for a passport but I wasn’t given it, even after showing my national ID card.”2 In response, Abdur Rab Hawlader, director general of the Department of Immigration and Passports, said that his department “did not receive any instruction from the