Collective Victimisation Of Stateless Peoples 293 tim’ is embedded. In addition, a victim should match the criteria attached to the ideal victim-label, in order to not be excluded from social recognition as a victim. Although it makes good sense that the United Nations refrains from inheriting a politically sensitive and essentially vague term as ‘victim’ in the context of statelessness, we contend that this appears to have had grave implications for the recognition of stateless persons as people who were victimised and therefore could invoke existing victim rights such as compensation, access to justice, psycho-social assistance etc.25 As long as the victim-identity of the stateless peoples does not yield dominance, statelessness invokes negative associations, instead of the compassion often attached to the victim-label, which has dire implications for the person who is subjected to the reality of statelessness. The absence of the word ‘victim’ in the statelessness Conventions reflects this systematic misrecognition of persons as being victimised and constitutes as such an unintended political statement about the ‘deservingness’ of stateless persons. We have argued that victimisation is inherent to the reality of being stateless in a hostile state. Furthermore, we contend that the label ‘stateless’ in such a context evokes exclusive social sentiments that might legitimize further maltreatment of the stateless within a society. After all, the way in which certain situations or contexts are framed can have great impact on the proposed approaches and policies that aim to provide for a solution. The recognition of victims as advocates, persons who have a voice and the importance of granting compensation, assuring justice and providing adequate victim services, should be stretched to the stateless populations and become a guiding approach when dealing with matters relating to collective victimisation. Victimologists should engage in further developing knowledge and policy concerning such communities and spread awareness about their essential status as deserving victims. 25 With regard to the needs of refugees, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UNHCR have recognized that psychosocial needs should not be ignored and, indeed, are as important as physical needs. The World Health Organisation, with the support of the Office, has produced a manual for the mental health of refugees and of others in emergency situations. This is aimed at non-professionals, as was its manual ‘The Community Health Worker’, published in 1990. The idea is to help those working with refugees to understand how they can provide mental and psychological support to those in emergency situations. tilburg law review 19 (2014) 285-293