Our members

Jyothi Kanics has a Masters in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford and a Masters in International Relations from Yale University. She is currently working as an Associate Member of Child Circle and completing her PhD at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lucerne. Since 1995 she has been active with NGOs and international organisations including UNICEF, UNHCR, Save the Children and OSCE ODIHR advocating for the rights of migrants in vulnerable situations such as separated children, trafficked persons, undocumented migrants and stateless persons. She continues to provide expert advice to the Council of Europe and OSCE as well as to various foundations and NGOs. She is an active individual member of the European Network on Statelessness in Switzerland and advised the ENS on its #StatelessKids campaign.

Katerina Komita is a lawyer before the Supreme Court of Greece specialized in human rights. From 2011 until 2021, she had been a member of the Legal Unit of the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) specialized in vulnerable cases. In this context, for seven years she had been the coordinator of the multidisciplinary project Prometheus (provision of holistic services for the recovery from the consequences of torture suffered by asylum seekers and refugees on a legal, social, psychological and medical level). She has contacted the ENS research Statelessness Index-Greece [years 2019, 2020 and 2021 (ongoing)]. Additionally, she has more than 15 years of experience as a journalist.

Katia Bianchini is a researcher at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, where she is conducting research on refugee law and statelessness. She holds a law degree from the University of Pavia (Italy), an LL.M. in Comparative Laws from the University of San Diego (California, USA), and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of York (UK). Her doctoral thesis provided an empirical and legal analysis of how the 1954 UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons is implemented in ten EU states. She has also worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen). Before engaging in research, she practised immigration and refugee law for ten years in the UK and the USA for about 10 years.

Lithuanian Red Cross (LRC) is a humanitarian organization that provides different kinds of assistance to asylum seekers, refugees, migrants and stateless people in Lithuania. LRC monitors conduct border monitoring, which covers monitoring at the borders, asylum seekers' detention and accommodation centers and initial asylum interviews. LRC lawyers provide regular legal consultations to asylum seekers at the borders, detention and accommodation centers, as well as legal counseling to stateless people, residing in the territory of Lithuania. The focus of LRC strategic litigation is on asylum cases, detention of vulnerable asylum seekers cases and non penalization for illegal border crossing cases. LRC case managers assist asylum seekers at community based accommodation and refugees during their integration in municipalities. LRC runs two one stop shop centers in Kaunas and Klaipeda, where any foreigner can receive social, employment, legal, psychological assistance, learn Lithuanian language, get orientation courses and participate in community events. LRC advocacy focuses on reception conditions and asylum procedures, integration, community based accommodation for most vulnerable people, family reunification. LRC also provides Restoring Family Links services to those people, who are in need to contact, trace or reunite with their family members.

My name is Moussa Mbarek and I fled Libya more than five years ago and have been living in Dresden ever since. I am Tuareg and come from Ubari, an oasis region in the southwest of Libya. 
My goal was always to study. Between my desire to become an engineer or to study art stood my origins. Like many other Tuareg, I have no citizenship in the country where I was born. This heritage determines my life, also here in Europe.
When the conflicts in Libya made a normal life so unbearable that you could be shot by the rival militias at any time and your wages were not enough to survive, I made my way to Europe.
Here I fight for an open society with the means of art and the mediation of cultural diversity. A central point of my exhibitions is the topic of statelessness. This artistic approach has often succeeded in drawing people's attention to this issue and developing an understanding for the necessity of political action.

NANSEN is an independent center of expertise in refugee law based in Brussels. Persons in a vulnerable position are core to our mandate in particular: victims of torture, stateless persons and migrants in administrative detention. Our mission is to develop and make available to all persons in need of international protection quality legal aid so that their fundamental rights become more effective. To achieve this objective, we combine technical legal expertise with an interdisciplinary approach to asylum. NANSEN was set up in 2017 by a group of lawyers and academics experienced in the field of refugee, human rights and migration law.

The Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers (NOAS) is an independent membership organisation working to protect the rights of asylum seekers in Norway. Its main activities are to give information and legal assistance to asylum seekers, as well as advocacy work toward the political establishment and the general public. NOAS’ largest assignment is the Information and counselling program commissioned by the Directory of Immigration (UDI), which provides information and counselling to asylum seekers shortly after arrival to Norway. NOAS aims to contribute to an asylum policy and practice rooted in humanism, justice and international obligations. NOAS’ focus is on rights for asylum seekers, which also includes stateless persons – approx. 4 -600 stateless persons register as asylum seekers in Norway each year.

OPU, the Organization for Aid to Refugees, is the oldest and largest non-governmental organization in the Czech Republic which assists refugees, stateless persons and migrants. We provide free in-person legal and social aid to refugees, stateless persons and migrants. OPU offers this help throughout the entire country by means of aid in all eight reception, accommodation and detention centers and five regional offices. OPU has been the watchdog of any unlawful practices and systemic failures of the Czech asylum and migration policy, including statelessness procedure. This helps us to create systemic change. OPU’s director and lawyers appear in media regularly, criticizing the Czech Ministry of Interior and laws that hurt migrants. OPU has successfully represented many refugees, stateless persons and their families, has fought against unlawful detention and prevented deportation of the most vulnerable individuals and has publicly reported on grave breaches of international law.

The People for Change Foundation is a Malta based, human rights organization focusing on research, lobbying an capacity building. Our key areas of work include: migration, asylum, trafficking, racism, children’s rights and youth participation. We work closely with other Maltese organizations as well as organizations and networks in various European countries and with other partners in other parts of the world. We support educational and research endeavors on migration related issues and seek to conduct our own high quality and policy relevant research. 

PIC – Pravni center za varstvo človekovih pravic in okolja

PIC is a non-governmental organisation focusing on the protection of human rights and the environment. The main areas of work include the protection of the rule of law, refugee and migration law, environmental law and protection of victims of discrimination. PIC provides free legal help and representation and conducts extensive advocacy, policy and awareness activities.