Regional Workshop on Statelessness and the Rights of Women and Children
Participants from Cambodia included the Alternate
Representative of Cambodia to AICHR (pictured middle),
Chief of Statistics and Civil Registration Office (pictured
right), and National Officer of the Office of the
Representative of Cambodia to AICHR (pictured left) and
UNHCR Cambodia. © UNHCR/B. Abante
statelessness
amongst women
and children could
be identified,
prevented and
reduced, as well as
measures that have
been taken to
protect stateless
children. Fourthly,
the report
concludes by setting
out the linkages that
can exist between
statelessness,
migration and
human trafficking.
The Causes and Consequences of
Statelessness
As was discussed during the Workshop, nationality is a right of paramount
importance as it entitles a person to the formal protection of a State when
abroad and often serves as the prerequisite for the full enjoyment of his or
her basic civil, political and economic rights. It is a right to which every
woman, girl, man and boy is entitled. Statelessness can result from gaps or
conflict of relevant nationality laws, usually between the laws of the State
where the person is born and laws of the State of nationality of his or her
parents. Technical flaws in nationality laws can also cause statelessness, for
example when a person is required to renounce his or her original nationality
before being able to apply for a new nationality. In such cases, if
naturalisation does not occur and there are no other protections in place, a
person is left stateless. Gender discrimination in nationality laws, where
women and men are not equally able to pass on their nationality to children,
can also cause statelessness particularly when a father is absent or a child is
born out of wedlock. State succession can leave people without a nationality,
for example where the original State of nationality dissolves leaving a person
without the nationality of the new State.
Stateless people face serious consequences in their everyday lives. As they do
not hold a nationality it is often not possible for them to undertake a range of
basic activities such as attending school, visiting hospital, working, registering
the birth of a child, owning property or travelling overseas. The stateless are
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