Country briefing: Statelessness and refugees in the Netherlands refugees affected by statelessness in the Netherlands are Palestinians, although there are also cases of Kuwaiti Bidoon, Rohingya, stateless Kurds, and people from the former USSR. Some of the key statelessness-related challenges emerging from our research in the Dutch context are highlighted below. Arrival & Registration • • • • Nationality problems are not being accurately identified and recorded on arrival. The failure to identify or record statelessness, leads to registration with imputed nationality or ‘unknown’ nationality, which can later be difficult to correct as there is a high evidentiary standard to establish statelessness. A residence permit and documents to ‘prove’ statelessness are needed for individuals to be registered as stateless by Municipalities. There is a general lack of awareness of the implications of statelessness and the rights and protections afforded to stateless people under international law. Determination of refugee status • • • • A lack of clarity about someone’s nationality can impact on the assessment of credibility. There is a general lack of awareness of statelessness issues by authorities. Stateless people report their nationality problems not being adequately addressed in the procedure leading to a higher likelihood of protection being refused. There is no statelessness determination procedure in the Netherlands so it’s not clear what the legal routes to protection are under the 1954 Convention if a stateless person is refused refugee protection under the 1951 Convention. Immigration detention • • If statelessness is not adequately addressed in the procedure it can lead to prolonged - and risk of arbitrary or unlawful - detention. There appears to be a commonly held belief among officials that individuals can be subject to return procedures and removed even if they are stateless. Child’s right to a nationality • The lack of awareness of the implications of statelessness and gender discrimination in nationality laws leads to inconsistent implementation of the safeguard to grant Dutch nationality to otherwise stateless children born in the country. Naturalisation • 2 There is a limited facilitated naturalisation procedure for stateless people in the Netherlands (they can apply after three years as opposed to five and are exempt from the requirement to provide a passport) but a birth certificate is still necessary, which cannot be met by many stateless people.