QUICK GUIDE 5 - KEY QUANTITATIVE METHODS QUICK GUIDE 5 - KEY QUANTITATIVE METHODS It is recommended by UN statisticians that “provisions should be made in order to obtain separate data for stateless persons.” 3 If a government is planning an Official Census, this presents an important opportunity for UNHCR to advocate for the inclusion of: • A separate question relating to citizenship; • A question on a person’s country of citizenship is generally essential for the identification of stateless persons; • Relevant response options in answer lists. In addition to the option of giving the name of an actual country as a response to the question on citizenship, response options to this question should also include “stateless/no citizenship” and “unknown” as separate response options. Clear instructions and guidance on the international definition of statelessness, and how to explain this in simple language, should be provided to the enumerators. If the response option “statelessness” is included, it is important to pair it with the option “no citizenship” because “no citizenship” may be more understandable than the concept of statelessness. This is particularly critical if enumerators are pressed for time and cannot explain to a respondent what it means to be stateless. If a respondent chooses either “stateless/no citizenship” or “unknown” in response to the question on citizenship, enumerators can ask certain follow-up questions to determine whether the person might in fact be eligible for a citizenship. Given timeconstraints in a census, such questions are more suited to a long form of the census, where this is used. A long form version will also allow for detailed probing of the answers to the citizenship question to verify “stateless/ no citizenship” or “unknown” responses. Depending on the main causes of statelessness in the country, factors which could have a bearing on whether the person has a citizenship could include: whether the person had a former nationality; whether the person habitually resided in another country (and for how long); whether the person has ever held a passport issued by another country; the nationality of the person’s parents; the date and country of birth of each of the respondent’s parents; whether the respondent’s parents have ever held 3 UNHCR, Measuring Statelessness through Population Census. Note by the Secretariat of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 13 May 2008, ECE/CES/AC.6/2008/SP/5, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4a705e4b2.html 48 U N H C R > R E S E A R C H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S - Q U I C K G U I D E S the passport of another country; and the duration for which the respondent’s parents resided in another country. These questions can reveal the links that stateless persons have to the country undertaking the census and to other countries, thereby providing guidance to policy makers on potential solutions through possible acquisition or confirmation of nationality on the basis of birth, descent, residence or marriage. The completeness and quality of information on the stateless population that may be derived from official census data will depend largely on the reliability of responses to questions on citizenship. Given the problems with self-identification as stateless as mentioned above, consideration should be given to advocating for the inclusion of questions which permit cross-checking of data based on self-identification of citizens. Such additional indicators can include questions on ethnicity, migration and documentation: • Ethnicity If it is known or suspected that members of a certain ethnic group are ordinarily stateless, questions to ascertain a respondent’s membership of a certain group may serve as an indicator of statelessness. The risk of discrimination based on information collected in official censuses, including on potentially sensitive topics such as ethnicity, particularly in countries prone to ethnically-based conflict, needs to be assessed on a country-by-country basis, and be evaluated against the risk of not having information on such groups. • Migration In countries where statelessness results from loss of ties to countries of former nationality, State succession and gaps in and conflicts between nationality laws, establishing the migration history of respondents and their parents and/or spouses can provide important information in assessing whether they are stateless. Such questions include: Country of birth? Date and country of birth of each parent? Year of arrival in the country for foreign-born persons or returning migrants? Former nationality/ies? Period of habitual residence in another country/ies? Possession of passport issued by another country? Parents’ nationality? • • • • • • • U N H C R > R E S E A R C H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S - Q U I C K G U I D E S 49