Law or policy reform enabling acquisition of nationality by registration The Malaysian Government has since officially acknowledged the issue of statelessness at the global stage during UNHCR’s High-Level Segment on Statelessness, which was held on the first day of UNHCR’s 70th Executive Committee meeting in October 2019. UNHCR and civil society efforts to identify and assist stateless persons In April 2014, UNHCR started a collaboration with the community-based NGO DHRRA, with the goal of identifying and resolving the situation of stateless persons. As a result of previous work on skills training for rural Indian-Tamil persons, mostly women DHRRA staff had discovered that statelessness was a recurring theme amongst these communities. DHRRA therefore began to assist individuals with their citizenship applications on a case-by-case basis. DHRRA works with community-based paralegals who understand the issues faced by their communities. The paralegals educated community members on the importance of having legal identity documents, eligibility requirements and application processes. They served as an informal link between a stateless applicant and formal government institutions and thus provided an approachable way to access justice. Through this work, DHRRA has also built relationships with local authorities, such as the police, the registration authorities and authorities in the health and education sectors to aid their efforts to assist communities with obtaining documentary proof to support their citizenship applications. Between 2006 and 2013, DHRRA submitted over 7,000 cases to the national registration authorities to obtain legal identity documentation. UNHCR provided DHRRA with technical and resource support to design and implement a mapping and registration project to provide accurate baseline data on the remaining number of stateless persons of Indian ethnic origin residing in four states in West Malaysia. The objective was to identify and reduce statelessness amongst persons considered to have strong links to Malaysia but who did not have any documentation or other proof of nationality. UNHCR worked with a civil society partner to increase sustainability and community acceptance. UNHCR also provided technical support to DHRRA with the legal analysis of the nationality law provisions. For example, DHRRA trained paralegals on the procedures and legal provisions with support from UNHCR. DHRRA continues to train paralegals as necessary to keep up to date on new developments and application procedures. 38 U N H C R > G P P A C T I O N 1 : R E S O LV I N G E X I S T I N G M A J O R S I T U AT I O N S O F S TAT E L E S S N E S S