NO CHILD SHOULD BE STATELESS

There is an urgent need for European States to act to prevent children from growing up being left without a nationality. More than half the countries in Europe are denying a nationality to thousands of children across the continent.

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#StatelessKids in Macedonia - Our member MYLA (Macedonian Young Lawyers Association) and ENS Youth Ambassadors did teaching in high schools as part of their awareness raising.

Plus they’ve done this amazing video which was aired on various TV stations.

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#StatelessKids in Slovenia – ENS member - The Peace Institute and ENS Youth Ambassadors showed innovation is key when speaking about statelessness to new audiences. Here’s a blog explaining their unique approach and how they designed a card game to get people talking about statelessness.

http://www.statelessness.eu/blog/statelesskids-slovenia-peace-institute-and-ens-youth-ambassadors-show-innovation-key-when

Also make sure to watch this excellent video on statelessness.

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#StatelessKids in Serbia - Serbia was one of seven priority countries for the #StatelessKids campaign where ENS worked in partnership with Praxis to raise awareness and promote measures to ensure that children can realise their right to a nationality.

"We wanted young people to be aware that children at risk of statelessness exist in their close surroundings, that they probably see them on the streets and maybe even know some of them."  -- Dijana and Ivana, ENS Youth Ambassadors

Read an full interview with ENS Youth Ambassadors Diajan and Ivana and Praxis Executive Director Ivanka Kostic

http://www.statelessness.eu/news-events/news/ens-interview-eradicating-childhood-statelessness-serbia

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In Poland our partner Halina Niec Legal Aid Center went to schools to talk to students about childhood statelessness and what it means to live without a nationality.

This is message from a postcard written by a 15-year old Polish student to the country’s President as part of the #StatelessKids campaign

Dear Mr President,

There are many stateless people living in Poland. They have no chance of a normal life, they cannot access higher education or even rent an apartment. Did you know about this? I didn’t. Now that I do, I would like to ask you to make Poland sign the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. Sincerely,

Barłomiej

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#StatelessKids - Working together to end childhood statelessness

On 22 November 2016 at an event in the European Parliament (Strasbourg), we handed over a petition with over 22,000 signatures to the Council of Europe and to the EU Parliament. The petition calls on European states to take action to ensure that no child is left stateless. Here's a glimpse from the day with tweets, videos and photos

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Most, but not all of us, have had our births registered. The lack of birth registration is not the same as statelessness, yet it heightens the risk of leaving children without a nationality. Today ENS is putting out a call that countries must ensure that their birth registration practices provide an opportunity for all children born in the country to be registered, and make the process streamlined and barrier-free.

It is crucial that Europe achieves immediate, free and universal birth registration to eradicate one key cause of childhood statelessness forever.

Demand that your country protects every child by registering every birth. #StatelessKids

https://you.wemove.eu/campaigns/end-childhood-statelessness-in-europe

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Children get their nationality through different types of connections they have with a country... But sometime their right to a nationality is denied and they end up stateless. Here’s why and what countries need to do to make sure no one ends up #StatelessKids 

Join our campaign to end childhood statelessness https://you.wemove.eu/campaigns/end-childhood-statelessness-in-europe

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Because EVERY child has the right to a nationality. Help us end childhood statelessness #StatelessKids

https://you.wemove.eu/campaigns/end-childhood-statelessness-in-europe

Download the PDF

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#StatelessKids Youth Congress (with images, tweets) · ENStatelessness

On Monday 11 July, 50 young ambassadors and ENS member organisations from across Europe joined European Network on Statelessness in Brussels for three days of training, strategy development and planning on how to eradicate childhood statelessness.

We’ve pulled together this Storify timeline with a selection of best tweets, videos and photos to try and capture some of the energy and commitment from the ‪#‎StatelessKids‬ youth congress.

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Sign our petition to end childhood statelessness now!

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This map shows the level of safeguards against childhood statelessness. Our research (”No Child Should be Stateless”) revealed that less than half of European countries have sufficient safeguards in place to prevent children from growing up stateless.

The majority of Europe’s stateless kids were born in Europe; many of them would not remain stateless today if all European countries had in place legal safeguards against childhood statelessness as required by international law. The shocking reality is that more than half the countries in Europe are failing to meet these obligations, thereby denying a nationality to thousands of children across the continent.

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Maria - 18 years old

Maria was born in Poland in 1998 to a Romanian mother who abandoned her in the hospital shortly after giving birth. Since the age of 2, Maria has been living with her foster family in Tarnobrzeg.  

Maria’s birth certificate stated that she was born of a Romanian mother even though no one could verify this information at the time. This made it impossible for Maria to claim Polish nationality and her legal guardians were not able to obtain Romanian identity documents for her either. They could not adopt her or give her their last name. They had heard from various officials that it was better not to pursue their case as it might have led to Maria’s expulsion to Romania. 

Growing up in Poland, Maria was stateless for over 16 years. She attended a Polish school, spoke perfect Polish, felt Polish and had no ties to Romania whatsoever. Following the advice they had received, her parents did not try to regulate her situation till the time she was older and started asking questions: 

‘Why can’t I go on a summer camp abroad? Why can’t I visit my father [who temporarily worked in Germany and on Cyprus]?’. 

She had no identity card and no passport. In 2009 the parents began an administrative struggle for her citizenship. 

The family sought help with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. The Foundation joined forces with White&Case law firm and set the procedure in motion. 

After a 5 year administrative battle, Maria received Polish nationality in August 2014. 

WATCH MARIA’S STORY

Maria and her parents feel happy that she had finally received documents confirming her national belonging and that she no longer feels different than her peers in this regard. However, they resent the lack of support from the authorities. They could not understand the attitude of civil servant. Maria’s father says:  

‘They haven’t done a thing, nobody wanted to tell us what to do, how to fight it, where to go (…). Public offices should take care of the best interest of the child (…). Instead, for them a child is a piece of paper moved between the ‘pending’ and ‘resolved’ piles. When it comes to Maria’s case, I am ashamed of this country’s law and officials who deal with such matters’.

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Andreea - 8 years old

Andreea is 8 and lives in Bucharest with her father and sisters. She never went to school, but she wants to. She doesn’t understand the reasons she can’t go, but she’s old enough to understand that she has to take care of her younger siblings:

‘What I do all day is stay with my sisters and we play with the other children (…) those who are my age go to school (…) I don’t know what school is like, maybe it’s nice, I don’t know.’

She lives at the outskirts of Bucharest now, in a house that resembles an improvised shelter more than a home.

She was born outside of a medical facility, in a village in Giurgiu County, and at the time her mother had lost her ID, so she did not go to register the child. The father tried to register her, but he was simply told they need to come up with the mother’s documents in order to be issued the certificates. Later on, when the mother acquired her new documents, more than one year had passed from the time of her birth; they asked around, her father, Marian, says, but did not really understand what they had to do for late birth registration. They did understand that they have to go to a court and that it would take a long time, and they postponed it.

‘I know it would have been better to do it then…’ the father says ‘but it sounded difficult and we thought we would just do that later on. The other children have birth certificates, because my wife went to register these children, she had already gotten a new ID when they were born’.

Andreea’s mother indeed acquired new IDs and left to work in Bucharest when the older daughter she was 4. After a while, they stopped getting news of her.