Good Practices Brochure: Stateless Women and Girls
Since 2015, ADRA in partnership with UNHCR has been implementing
the Statelessness Reduction and Community Sensitization (CSP) project
to help resolve the situation of statelessness in Thailand. The project
aims to provide legal support and assist stateless people in preparing
nationality applications, coordinate and provide technical support for
local registrars in processing nationality applications and advocate for
wider access to nationality and basic rights.
An assessment carried out by UNHCR revealed that people living in remote
areas faced numerous challenges to access to Thai nationality application
procedures, including the distance from district administrations and
lack of awareness in communities. UNHCR discovered that collaboration
with central and local authorities as well as NGO networks and stateless
communities was crucial in supporting and accelerating the processing
of applications and related civil status documentation. It was also crucial
to engage communities in order to enhance their awareness.
The CSP project targeted areas with high prevalence of statelessness.
In 2015, ADRA initially opened service points in five schools in Mae
Fah Luang District in northern Thailand, enabling stateless students
to obtain relevant information and prepare their applications for civil
status documentation, permanent residency and nationality. With the
success of this model, the project was extended to two other districts in
the following years. The service points were then expanded to include
community areas to enable easy access for stateless people.
As of now, CSP operates 10 service points that coordinate with 90
schools and 45 community areas in three districts of Chiang Rai; Mae Fah
Luang, Mae Chan and Mae Sai. Each service point has one community
mobilizer and one community volunteer to provide legal counselling
and assist stateless people in checking documents and filling nationality
applications. The project has also engaged community leaders, NGO
networks and local authorities for policy advocacy and capacity-building
activities on legislations related to nationality and civil registration.
Now serving as a community volunteer for CSP, Chayapa continues to
serve her community in Chiang Rai Province and help stateless people
obtain Thai nationality.
Reference: https://adrathailand.org/impact/stateless-reduction/
The original case study was contributed by Nantanee Jedsadachaiyut (UNHCR)
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