Everything you need to know about statelessness

'I feel that I belong too’ – stateless Roma in Europe

Thirteen-year-old Lirije is a stateless Roma girl who lives in Skopje, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Like her, more than 75% of the…

Denial and denigration: How discrimination feeds statelessness

Ethnic, national, religious and linguistic minorities make up a disproportionate number of the world’s stateless population. While statelessness may…

#RomaBelong – Tackling Roma statelessness in the Western Balkans and Ukraine

“I feel bad because I am from here but they are not giving me citizenship. I feel I don’t belong here. God forbid if I die, they will not bury me…

One man’s struggle for an identity

We all know that some ten million people around the world are stateless. Often they are reduced to statistics, case files and quotes. Art can be a…

Roma in Serbia still denied birth certificates – ENS members take legal action to challenge register offices’ unlimited power

The purist in me imagines bureaucrats running around maternity wards, struggling to catch all the details (“Name? Mother’s name? Sorry, can you…

Using the UN Human Rights Special Procedures to address statelessness

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have not to date made as much use as they could of the United Nations (UN) Special Procedures to raise and…

Thoughts on Strategic Litigation: Can EU law prevent and reduce Roma statelessness in Europe?

The Court of Justice famous weighed in several years ago on the relevance of EU law to situations where EU citizens are made stateless (Case C-135/08…

The case of Zoja - I am no longer legally invisible, but I remain invisible in the eyes of the state where I was born and where I have lived for 34 years

There is no doubt that the procedure for determining the time and place of birth established by the Law on Amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious…

Legally Invisible in Serbia

Just outside the front door of their shack in an informal Roma settlement in central Belgrade, Serbia, 15-year-old Deni and his six brothers and…

CESCR’s recommendation – Serbia to ensure effective access to personal documents for Roma and displaced persons, and in the meantime to facilitate their access to economic, social and cultural rights

In May 2014, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights considered the Second Periodic Report of Serbia on the measures applied and…

The case of Valjbona and her children - lack of birth registration leaves many Roma children in a situation of undetermined nationality for an extended period of time

“Once I acquire nationality, my children will finally be able to go to the doctor’s when necessary and I will not have to pay for medicines. Nearby…

Abandoned by parents, neglected by the State

„...I just want to get an ID card, like other citizens, and then register the birth of my children. My greatest wish is that my children go to…