Regional Workshop on Statelessness and the Rights of Women and Children AICHR Co-Chair Rafendi Djamin Chair of ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) in 2011 and Representative of Indonesia to the AICHR South East Asia is a diverse region which faces many protection challenges today. At this workshop we discussed one of those challenges: statelessness and the rights of women and children. The region offers interesting and divergent experiences of how that challenge can be addressed, including some that can both be studied and used as examples in other regions. It is an issue that we continue to tackle and it will be interesting to see how far we can progress in the next ten years. AICHR and UNHCR’s joint two-day workshop yielded a number of concrete recommendations, and I hope we can implement them by strengthening our partnership with other organizations in the region. Among those recommendations, I wish to highlight a number of activities that may be prioritized. First of all, a review of the nationality laws of ASEAN Member States could be undertaken to identify possible gaps and conflicts that contribute to statelessness. Secondly, through ASEAN, the adoption of concrete provisions in national law to ensure that everyone’s birth is registered can continue to be encouraged. Thirdly, ASEAN Member States and international organizations can explore ways to collaborate in sharing information to identify the number of stateless persons in the region. Finally, it would be useful if the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, which AICHR is currently drafting, incorporates a provision to address statelessness. In particular the Declaration could include a safeguard that would ensure that the revocation or loss of nationality does not result in statelessness.