#stateless

"In a landmark move towards ending statelessness, Thailand’s cabinet has approved an accelerated pathway to permanent residency and nationality for nearly half a million stateless people, marking one of the region’s most significant citizenship initiatives. 

The decision announced on Friday [November 1, 2024] will benefit 335,000 longtime residents and members of officially recognized minority ethnic groups, along with approximately 142,000 of their children born in Thailand.

“This is a historic development,” said Ms. Hai Kyung Jun, UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Bureau Director for Asia and the Pacific. The measure is expected to dramatically reduce statelessness, addressing the situation of the majority of nearly 600,000 people currently registered as stateless in the country.

Thailand’s commitment to eradicating statelessness has positioned the Government as a leader in addressing this humanitarian challenge, the agency said.

The country recently pledged at the Global Refugee Forum 2023 to resolve statelessness and was among the founding members of the Global Alliance to End Stateless, an initiative launched by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, in Geneva last month...

UNHCR has expressed its commitment to continue working closely with the Royal Thai Government on the implementation of this groundbreaking decision and to ending statelessness overall."

Lene Lovich

My issue with it, is actually the war on Palestine

(I'm trying my best to explain the issue but it's not gonna be perfect, so please please please read the links below)

Some countries already do not have birthright citizenship, the citizenship of babies born in that country depends on the citizenship of their parents.

The problem is Palestine isn't considered a full legal country by all countries.

So if Palestinians flee the war as refugees, they may end up in a country that doesn't have birthright citizenship. Because it's really really really hard (impossible) to enact Palestinian nationality laws. Because much of Palestine is under occupation of Israel.

Which makes the baby (and sometimes the parents) stateless.

Statelessness is a HUGE ISSUE for discrimination. Because they don't have any valid documents proving their origin. They have no nationality. They have no country to protect them. They have no country to be deported to (or they risk being deported to a country that's actively hostile against them).

If an American travels and gets captured by a terrorist organization, their government will protect their citizen. Stateless people have no such protection. Moreover, trying to get jobs, visas, travel documents with no nationality is a shitload of red tape.

So, yeah. Birthright citizenship isn't just about protecting people from being deported to a country they don't know. It's about protecting people from being stateless.

Because if refugees flee to the United States and they're here for.. 10 years? 15? They're probably gonna have children. And those children will be full legal citizens of the United States, and not have to deal with the hurdles of atatelessness that their parents have to fight just to go to school or get a job.

Huge Low Poly Art Sculptures And Installations By David Mesguich

David Mesguich, a street artist and globetrotter, makes large installations that leaves where everyone can see them, in the public spaces of countries like France, Belgium and Poland.

Huge installations that are designed to shake the social consciousness, as in the case of his latest project “Stateless“, a series where the protagonists are migrants who fight against the borders and the Holy Europe watching from the sideline.