Risk Of Statelessness

2.5 Population at risk of statelessness

There are certain groups of individuals who are not exactly stateless but are certainly at risk of being stateless. Individuals whose births are unregistered or have not yet applied for enabling documents such as identity documents (IDs) or passports, birth certificates cannot be described as ‘stateless’ – they may be able to access nationality should they approach the relevant authorities. However, when combined with other factors, these set of people are at risk of statelessness.

2.5.1 Migrants

IOM defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status;

This includes former refugees who are no longer recognised as refugees and who have not returned to their country of origin nor obtained documentation of the nationality of their country. An example is the case of Nigerians who have fled to neighbouring countries-Cameroon, Niger and Chad as a result of the North Eastern crisis. While these individuals are not yet stateless, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that they are certainly at risk of becoming stateless due to the fact that before the crises most of those displaced lacked identity document and that the longer they live and reproduce in those countries, the greater their risk. Many have lost or had their documents destroyed before or during their journey to reach

Unlike the above mentioned countries, we still have countries that discriminate against women’s right to transmit nationality to her children. These vulnerable children are usually undocumented and lack formal recognition. They eventually grow up to become stateless because the longer it takes to establish a legal identity the more difficult it becomes. This usually occurs where nationality laws and policies or administrative mechanism of the countries fail to provide adequate substantive and procedural guarantees to ensure that vulnerable children can obtain recognition of