3 BUILD BACK BETTER We invite all actors to learn the hard lessons that the pandemic has taught us and invest in future-proofing, ensuring a lasting commitment to breaking down the pervasive injustice, indignity, inequality, deprivation and exclusion that stateless people face, focusing on: • • • • • • implementing reforms to address discriminatory laws, policies and practices; redressing the intergenerational disadvantage and legacy of statelessness; being accountable to stateless communities and activists; monitoring the performance and progress of states; ensuring access to justice and reparations for stateless people; and sustainably investing in inclusive societies. KEY THEMATIC FINDINGS Below, are the key thematic findings of this report, with regard to the COVID-19 impact on the rights and wellbeing of stateless people. Of the five thematic areas addressed, the right to nationality, documentation and legal status and equality and non-discrimination represent the main structural challenges which have a cyclical and inter-generational impact on stateless people. People are more likely to be deprived of other rights because they lack nationality, documentation or legal status. Without ready solutions, their children are more likely to inherit the same (lack of) status. Similarly, discrimination on the basis or race, sex and other grounds can cause and perpetuate statelessness, and statelessness in turn can lead to more discrimination. The other three thematic issues - the right to health, socioeconomic rights and civil and political rights - relate to some of the main rights deprivations that stateless people endure, which have been further exacerbated due to the pandemic. These challenges are all interrelated and mutually reinforcing, heightening the cost of statelessness, generating new risks of statelessness and stifling efforts to promote the right to nationality and the rights of stateless people. THE RIGHT TO HEALTH The right to health should have universal application regardless of race, religion, legal status or other criteria. A year into the pandemic however, healthcare related challenges faced by stateless people have only heightened. The cost of healthcare continues to be an insurmountable hurdle for many stateless people, including in Central Asia, the Dominican Republic, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Montenegro, Nepal, North Macedonia and South Africa. This is because stateless people are excluded from healthcare plans, subsidies, insurance schemes and free healthcare that citizens are entitled to. In countries such as Sweden, to procure a COVID-19 test, a digital ID is required which many stateless people do not have; the lack of documentation has further prevented access to healthcare in Central Asia, India, Kenya, Libya and Thailand. Fear of arrest, detention and harassment by police or officials has also cultivated a culture of fear around accessing healthcare, preventing stateless people in countries including Kenya and Malaysia from seeking potentially life-saving treatments. The inability to carry out effective preventative measures including social distancing and wearing PPE, as well as lack of access to sanitation and hygiene products and facilities due to living and working conditions, also places stateless communities at great risk. Many communities of stateless people and those whose nationality is at risk live in densely populated camps and settlements including the Rohingya, the Urdu speaking community in Bangladesh, Nubians in Kenya and Roma communities in the Western Balkans. The mental health impacts of lockdowns, loss of livelihoods, exposure to health risks and starvation and exclusion from state relief measures, are also significant. There is an urgent need to ensure inclusivity in the roll out of COVID-19 vaccines, rising above vaccine nationalism. Unfortunately, we are already seeing a ‘citizens first’ approach to vaccine distribution and worrying initiatives including vaccine passports which would further exclude stateless people. In Central Asia and Kenya, stateless communities have not been included in the vaccine roll out. There have been no announcements of vaccine allocations for the Rohingya communities in Bangladesh, India and Malaysia. Further, in India it is mandatory to show a government issued ID card to receive the vaccine; in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, five million Palestinians have been intentionally excluded from the vaccine plan; and in Cameroon, stateless people are excluded with their lack of documentation reported as the barrier to access. According to official discourse in the Dominican Republic those deemed ‘illegal migrants’ and stateless people, who lack Dominican documentation, are denied access to vaccines. However, at the local level, arrangements have been made with decentralised public health services for these groups where representations by affected parties have been met with positive responses. In a show of good practice, the Montenegrin government has changed its policy, and has placed the Roma as a priority group for vaccination, and confirmed that all Montenegrin residents regardless of citizenship can receive the vaccine. 7