Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Social and economic marginalization are both causes and consequences of statelessness among Roma communities in Europe, whose status has remained unresolved under the citizenship laws adopted by the new states created following the splitting up of the former Soviet Union.47 Even if some Roma have documented nationality, the impact of statelessness is widely felt among the broader Roma community: The Roma population is the poorest population, lagging behind other members of Montenegrin society. The majority of them are born stateless, spending most of their life fighting the inequality they inherited, and unfortunately often passing on their problems to future generations. (Government Ministry, Montenegro).48 A study of statelessness in Central Asia noted that extreme poverty and food insecurity is highest in regions in which many stateless people are known to live; notably in Kyrgyzstan, where the most systematic research had been carried out. Lack of access to formal employment was mentioned as one of the main causes of poverty, especially by those stateless people who also had no permanent residence status in the country (based on a former Soviet citizenship).49 In Lebanon there are distinctions between stateless persons based on the different statuses they hold and their corresponding identity documents. The central government recognizes one group of stateless persons with the status of “nationality under study” (qayd el dars), who are considered to be of foreign origin and undetermined nationality despite long historical roots in the country. Members of this group have access to identity documents, civil registration, residency rights and the right to work, although only with formal authorization. Other stateless persons, referred to by the Lebanese authorities as “unregistered” (maktoum el qayd), are not recorded in any civil registry. Some of these stateless persons have a document issued by a local authority (the ta’arif card), and others have nothing at all. In the northern province of Akkar, which generally faces severe economic challenges, the majority of stateless people are unregistered and have only a local authority identity card. Over 64 per cent of stateless respondents to a survey in Akkar indicated that they did not have formal employment, compared to (an already high) 54 per cent of Lebanese nationals.50 The economic crisis is affecting everyone in Akkar. But the stateless are particularly hopeless, they are really poor and no one is looking out for them. (Mukhtar [town official], Wadi Khaled, Akkar).51 Investigations into the situation of the Shona community in Kenya – of Zimbabwean and Zambian origin and resident in the country since the early 1960s but not recognized as Kenyan – found that they were only able to work in the informal economy and unable to access higher education or other opportunities. More than half of the community lived below the national poverty line, compared to under a third of those recognized as Kenyan living in similar urban areas (see box (E)).52 47. Julia Sardelić, “The vulnerability of Roma minorities to statelessness in Europe”, Minority Rights Group International (web resource on statelessness), October 2017 https://minorityrights.org/denial-and-denigration-how-racism-feeds-statelessness-2/; Helen O’Nions, “How citizenship laws leave the Roma in Europe’s hinterland”, in The Human Right to Citizenship: A Slippery Concept, ed. Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann and Margaret Walton-Roberts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 145–60. 48. European Network on Statelessness, European Roma Rights Centre and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Roma Belong”, 43. 49. Marjorie Farquharson, “Statelessness in Central Asia” (Geneva: UNHCR, 2011), 64–65, www.refworld.org/docid/4ed32c9a2.html. 50. UNHCR and Siren Associates, “Mapping and understanding statelessness in Akkar, Lebanon” (UNHCR, December 2021), www.refworld.org/ docid/61f8f5dc4.html. 51. UNHCR and Siren Associates, 16. 52. UNHCR and World Bank, “Understanding the socioeconomic conditions of the stateless Shona Community in Kenya: Results from the 2019 Socioeconomic Survey”, 2020, https://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/understanding-socioeconomic-conditions-stateless-shona-community-kenya; Kenya Human Rights Commission, “African missionaries in identity limbo: the Shona of Kenya” (Nairobi: Kenya Human Rights Commission, October 2020), https://khrc.or.ke/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Shona-report-final.pdf. 26