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All actors must prioritise listening to and learning
from the lived experiences of those directly
affected by statelessness, including stateless
children, in order to imagine and implement useful
and sustainable actions to address statelessness
and protect the human rights of stateless persons.
“We need to listen and make sure many
different voices are represented.”
Laetitia van den Assum
Diplomatic Expert and
Conference Chair
7
If a global movement is to flourish, it must
provide a safe and equal space for all types of
actors to come together and collectively drive
the issue forward. Such a space will only begin
to take shape when individuals and institutions reflect
on and make concerted efforts to address power
imbalances, recognise and deal with privilege and
combat barriers to equal participation. Resources,
language, freedom of movement and safety are all
very real barriers which must be recognised and
confronted.
“In real life, for most people living in
these cracks, life is marginalised and
vulnerable, where one faces existential
threat on a daily basis. It is a site of
danger and precariousness though some
have found agency through powerful
mobilization.”
Radhika Coomaraswamy
Member of the UN Human Rights Council
Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar and former
Under-Secretary-General of the UN, Special
Representative on Children and Armed Conflict
8
We must work to simplify over-complicated
bureaucratic requirements in civil registration
and documentation procedures to reduce the
risk of statelessness which current systems can
cause, especially for minorities, refugees, migrants,
nomads or other potentially marginalised groups.
Where citizenship is denied or deprived, leading to
severe rights violations, state accountability must be
more effectively addressed.
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We must prioritise awareness raising
and facilitate the increased collaboration
between different sectors in order
to address the cross-cutting themes related to
statelessness. Statelessness must be more
effectively identified in order to appropriately tailor
interventions for individuals and communities without
a nationality – be it within humanitarian assistance,
development programming or another sector.
“[Statelessness] should be
mainstreamed as part and parcel of
statelessness awareness and literacy
for people also dealing with conflict
prevention, with humanitarian aid, with
development corporation, for access to
basic social services, with equal rights.”
Marriët Schuurman,
Human Rights’ Ambassador
of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
11
Given what we have come to understand
about the deeper drivers behind the
manipulation or even weaponisation of
citizenship, we must do more to promote not just legal
‘remedies’ but also to challenge the narratives that
allow statelessness to be created and perpetuated.
Our collective efforts must be more inclusive of
the arts and media, offering greater space for
interdisciplinary collaboration.
“The CANCELLED Arts Programme is
rooted in the idea that something has to
exist to be cancelled, any entity that has
been cancelled does exist in the world,
but we are denied access to it. … [We
aim to] remove the boundary between
art and other forms of practice and see if
there is something where all sides
benefit from a collaborative
conversation.”
David Cotterrell,
Empathy & Risk
9
At the international, regional and national
level we must strengthen our advocacy efforts
and human rights engagement. We must
also secure increased State accession to relevant
treaties.
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