Statelessness, Trauma and Mental Well-being being able to write these exams was weighing down on him. He was showing signs of stress and he would come to see the social worker daily to check on the progress of his case. One weekend, the social worker had a family emergency that necessitated travel away from the residential care facility. Upon the social worker’s return, he learned that Andrew had passed on after committing suicide. The issue of lack of documentation had taken its toll on him, and he had become hopeless, socially isolated from family, with feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. Andrew had confided in his peers that he could not bear to see his dream of featuring for the South African national team and writing his matric exam fail due to a lack of documentation. As far as he was concerned, he was South African and did not see a reason why granting him an identity document was such a big issue. “Uncle, why are they rejecting me like this?” he would often ask the social worker. The multi-layered stressors and psychosocial and physical health issues converged to create an experience of loneliness, hopelessness, worthlessness, and despair, leading to suicide. The case of Andrew above represents a tip of the iceberg of the suffering that many stateless persons endure on a day-to-day basis due to lack of documentation. Statelessness leads to a situation of precarity where people live with uncertainty and perpetual worry every single day of their lives. This impacts the mental health of affected stateless persons and the prolonged day-to-day precarity eventually leads to more severe forms of traumatic mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. For Andrew, lack of documentation blocked his advancement in schooling, it crushed his hopes as a budding footballer who saw himself representing the South African national team. Sadly, he could not handle the mental toll that was induced by his situation of statelessness. Thus, statelessness in combination with other factors eventually led to his untimely and regrettable demise at such a young age. The hopes, dreams and potential of this young teenage boy were crushed. Andrew had lived with this situation for many years and it was something that had inconvenienced him time after time, but he was able to navigate the inconveniences that came with statelessness until he encountered the major huddles that eventually cost him his life. Such situations come with tremendous mental strain and stress that eventually lead to complex trauma, somatic illnesses and even death, as in the case of Andrew. Indeed, it is challenging to live with daily uncertainty and inconvenience. For Andrew, as is the case for millions of other stateless persons, statelessness represents rejection, and a denial of being. The need for belonging and acceptance is a universal desire in all people and it is needed at all levels of our ecology, from family, school, community, and the country at large. To this end, a denial of citizenship is in essence a denial of one’s existence, identity and right to citizenship. While this is legally a breach of human rights, there are hidden mental health costs to statelessness that haunt affected persons daily. Dreams are shattered, hopes dashed and opportunities are limited because the person does not have documentation. The ‘world’ of statelessness shuts out persons from access to economic opportunities, 51