Invisible Citizens: The Gender & Class Dynamics of Statelessness

the stateless concerned about? Well, the proposal by the whole ministry, a mixed bag. One brilliant step forward, several worrying steps back with severe consequences, but it's not too late to stop this. On today's show, I'm joined by an expert in statelessness at an international level. She's associate professor, professor rather go from the Peter mcmullin Center on statelessness

at the University of Melbourne. She also wrote a chapter on women in the book called Nationality and Statelessness Under International Law, which is what we are going to be focused on in this episode. As always, the show is available as a podcast. You can find us on the BFM APP, Spotify or where we get your podcast from. Rather welcome to the show. Thanks Dash. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for having me. Um Let's start with an overview of the current landscape

of statelessness among women at an international level. How severe is the situation? So, it's an excellent question bin because uh the short answer is we don't know. And the simple reason for that is that statelessness is a bit of a hidden human rights issue. Uh And one of the reasons it's hidden is that states or governments don't tend to collect statistics on statelessness,

much less disaggregate them. So what that means is that while the international community has a broad idea of how many stateless people there might be and that is um you know, anywhere between four and 10 or 15 million people globally, we really don't know the true number and we really don't know how many of those people would be women. So it's difficult to know how severe the problem is.

If you also look at some of the reasons why statelessness exists, uh The main root cause of statelessness is discrimination and that is usually discrimination on the basis of race or on on the basis of ethnicity. So again, it doesn't really give you a good idea of how many women will be affected there is. However, the separate issue of gender discrimination and nationality laws and that's something that we can discuss further.

So before we get to that, including some of the root causes, because it is so difficult to really see how prevalent the situation of steepness involving statelessness is. But we do know it is serious, it impacts a lot of people, millions of people. Could we study trends? Are there notable trends? Do you get a sense that things are getting better or worse perhaps over the past several decades? How do you see that?

Yeah, it's uh looking back, particularly say over the last 1020 even up to 50 years, you know, you definitely see uh spikes um in particular parts of the world or in particular situations. Of course, you have legacy issues of statelessness that have existed for a long time now.

Um including, for example, because of the dissolution of certain States, like the former Soviet Republic or the former Yugoslavia when those states dissolved and became new states, a lot of people fell through the cracks and we're still looking at are those legacy situations of statelessness. But if we look at trends, say over the last 10 or 20 years, we do see that those trends where we've seen increases in the number of statelessness uh is because of discrimination,

particularly racial or ethnic discrimination. And a couple of examples that I can point to, for example, include uh people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic who were left stateless after a court decision in 2003. Um and that was very much motivated by uh the ethnicity of these people who had lived in the Dominican Republic for generations who had previously been entitled to Dominican Republic nationality, but then who were stripped of it. And perhaps even

more recently, if you look at 2019 as close to home. Well, I'm in Australia but as close to home as India um in the state of Assam, we saw an exercise which is called the updating of the national register of citizens. Uh a register of citizens for that state which uh after having been updated, left out 1.9 million people whose status right now remains a little unclear but could be said to be stateless because there is no state that is recognizing them currently as their nationals.

I think that's a very interesting point that doesn't get stressed enough. How would you contextualize the root causes of statelessness before we dive into, you know, women specifically? Because when we look at, let's say the refugee situation, right? I think sometimes it's a little bit easier to grasp what is going on because you see either countries getting bombed by foreign invasion or there is a civil war that causes this displacement of millions of people who are fearing persecution and they

are looking for asylum in other countries. How do you look at the root causes of statelessness? Is it more towards just discriminatory laws within each nation state. Uh It's a, it's an excellent point you make and you're right, it is somehow easier to conceptualize of who a ref refugee is. If you look at the definition of a refugee, it in law, it actually talks about um the fact that to be a refugee, you need to have been persecuted. So it already gives you a

sense of what the cause might be. Um When it comes to statelessness, the definition doesn't really give you any clues. The legal definition is a person who is not recognized by, as a citizen, by any country under the operation of its laws. Um But if you dig deeper and you look at the situation uh that has led to statelessness, there are actually multiple root causes. I mean, the most prevalent of them is discrimination, be it on the basis of ethnicity, religion

or race. Um But there are other root causes as well. So for example, um statelessness can result, as I mentioned earlier as a result of state succession. So um where a state um either dissolves and becomes new states or combines with another territory to form a new state. Um that can be a cause of statelessness when people don't get the nationality of the new states that have been formed. Um It can also happen because of a lack of

what we call safeguards in nationality laws. So for example, you have a situation where sometimes Children unfortunately are abandoned at birth or when they're very young for multiple reasons. Um, but sometimes it's very difficult to establish, um, who their parents are.

And in that case, um, it's recommended that countries have safeguards in their nationality laws to say, well, ok, if I find an abandoned child or a foundling that child absent, their parents should immediately acquire the nationality of a state because, uh, getting a nationality is really important for accessing other rights. But the fact of the matter is that more than a third of states around the world don't have this fundamental safeguard in their nationality laws. So lack of lack

of safeguards can be another root cause of statelessness. Another cause can be um lack of proper birth registration or birth certification. Now, having a birth register, having your birth registered or, or your birth certified in and of itself is not akin to giving, being given nationality. But what birth registration does is it records who your parents are and where you were born. And those two factors are really important for determining, determining which nationality you're

entitled to acquire. So if you don't have a birth certificate or if your your your birth has not been registered, then those key pieces of information are missing. And it's much easier then for authorities to say, well, you know, you don't have your proof of which nationality you should be acquiring. You, you know, you're not entitled to our nationality. So that can be

another root cause. And the list can go on, there are actually quite a few uh different root causes, but I would go back to the fact that the main one is discrimination. So with that in mind, when it comes to women, women who are stateless in particular, um what are the root causes of this when it comes to women in particular? And I'm wondering if there are legal and cultural barriers that impact women's nationality rights across the world.

So it's, it's a really good question. And you know, on the one, on the one hand, I would say that there's not been enough research done to know whether there are specific root causes that impact on women more than they do on men. Um It's, it's hard to say that, you know, uh discrimination on the basis of race affects women more than men, it would affect both sexes equally. However, there are some specific examples of where women might be more vulnerable to statelessness.

And let me give you those. Um you can take the example of say a nationality law which says that if you acquire your spouse's nationality, you immediately lose your previous nationality. But then the nationality law is silent on what happens when, let's say, for example, you get divorced from that man and the nationality law law of the husband says that upon divorce, um you know, uh a foreign woman immediately loses that nationality, that she acquired from her husband.

So in that case, unless the, the nationality law of the woman of the woman's country has a safeguard mechanism that says, you know, this woman will reacquire her nationality, then she will be left stateless. We also have examples and this is getting a little bit technical of nationality laws that say, um you know, in order to acquire another nationality of another person, you

first need to renounce your, your original nationality. Now, we've had situations of women where they have said that they are going to get married to a man from a different country, they want to acquire that man's nationality, they renounce their original nationality, but then the marriage never happens for whatever reason and then they're stuck in limbo because they can't actually

reacquire their original nationality. So in this case, women are more impacted than men, but it's quite, it's quite a specific example. And on to your question about how um both in terms of legal and cultural terms, um women might, women's nationality rights might be, might be more affected. Um Certainly in terms of a legal matter, what we do tend to see is that nationality laws which discriminate when it

comes on the basis of sex. Uh in terms of women being able to pass their nationality on to their spouses or to their Children. Um, as a sort of legal matter, many of these uh nationality laws that prevail in 24 countries uh in the case of women who can't pass nationality equally to their Children as men, is that in many cases, these are hangovers from the time that these countries were colonized.

So they're not the sort of original laws of the, of the country that we're speaking of, but they're rather uh laws that have been passed on over time, including when those countries were colonized. So they reflect a bit of a bygone era in terms of the fact that the colonizing state may have actually changed its own laws to become gender equal. But the newly independent state has kept a previous law that was gender discriminatory. So that, that we can see it as having an

impact both legally in terms of women's rights. But also in terms of the cultural practice where, for example, the new elites in the country will insist that actually um the gender discrimination is not actually a colonial hangover, but is actually part and parcel of the state religion or is actually um a cultural norm, which is in fact not the case. Uh It's something that has been inherited.

So I want to know what is the impact of being stateless towards the people who are stateless and also like what is the impact in general? And I know both stateless men and women face harsh challenges that impact cuts across. Like you said, if it's, you know, if people are stateless because of their ethnicity, then, you know, regardless whether you're a man or a woman.

Um You know, you are going to be impacted by, by the situation, but just looking at it through an intersectional lens, what are, what is the distinct challenges or impact that stateless women go through? Thanks very much for that question. And again, it's a good one and I think it's an area in which a lot more research needs to be done.

Um But just speaking, you know, in general terms, uh uh Hannah Arendt who's a famous philosopher, um who was a survivor of the Holocaust once said that nationality is the right to have rights. Now, we all know that universal human rights exist and that they should exist regardless of whether or not you have a citizenship. But in practical matters, um if you don't have citizenship, it can affect your access to other basic rights, like right to education, right to healthcare.

Um And for stateless people, this can be really devastating because it means that they often can't access the very simple services that others can. Um And it has a direct impact on their lives in terms of their livelihoods, in terms of their ability to earn uh a decent living in terms of them to access healthcare when they're sick in, in terms of their ability to even move freely within a country or beyond its borders. Um So it really, really strips away at kind of

what it means to exist. Um as a as a full human being, in terms of being able to function uh in just a very normal fashion. Now, when it comes to women, uh and the specific impacts that that women face, there are some particular examples where if you look at it from an intersectional lens, you can see that women are more impacted. One of the one of the impacts of being stateless is that you're not considered to be a legal person before the law. And in fact, many stateless people will be very uh

nervous to approach law authorities. Um because in some cases without paperwork, without an indication of why they are on the territory, they face detention or imprisonment simply for existing basically. Um And you can imagine a situation uh in certain communities as with any communities where for example, domestic violence exists and domestic violence is generally perpetrated by men against women.

Uh across the board, you can end up with a really bad situation where um women simply have nowhere to turn. They cannot go to law authorities, they cannot seek any kind of redress um because they are so fearful and this is something that would obviously impact women more than it would impact men. Um I think in other circumstances, um we see in different parts of the world where women take on a

larger burden of, of child rearing. Um as is often the case, um all of those issues that affect Children who are stateless, the woman has to kind of compensate for that much more. Um So for example, I've seen situations where women because they want to ensure that their Children are able to access an education and often that might mean an education that's private pay for, take on ridiculous amounts of work, 34 jobs.

Um Simply to ensure that their Children are on a, you know, close to a level playing field with their citizen counterparts. So it's the woman who's kind of having to make all these additional compensations, not to say anything of the, you know, emotional distress of having to see, for example, a child who's injured and not be able to take them to the hospital or receive appropriate medical care. Um But as I said, a lot of this is anecdotal.

Um and I think that if a proper study was conducted into the intersectional kind of, as you say, um looking at the impact of stateless statelessness through an intersectional lens, I think we might uncover many, many more impacts um that are specific to women. What are the long term consequences of being stateless? Because even in Malaysia and in other countries, you sometimes come across examples of people who have been stateless across generations.

You know, their parents don't have a sort of officially formal documents to say they are a citizen of X country or Y country, then they give birth and their Children grow up stateless as well. And their Children might then have Children who also grow up stateless. What is the impact of this? So I think that we can look at impacts at three levels. That's the impact on the individual who, whose family might have been, you know, stateless for generations. There's

the impact on the stateless community itself. And then there's the impact on the, on the state or the government in which um these people are living. Um So I might discuss those quickly each in turn. So I think at the individual level, you know, you can imagine that if your mother has not had the benefit of going to school and your mother's mother has not had the benefit of going to school and your mother's mother's mother has not had the benefit of going

to school. Um This has a trickle down effect on you as an individual in terms of your sense of self worth, in terms of any aspirations you might have in terms of uh your sense of hope and perhaps in some cases, the value you might put on uh certain things like education because it's just not something that you have had access to. Um And so I think likewise, um there have been some more recent studies done that have also looked at um the the mental health of individuals who have been

intergenerationally stateless if I can put it that way. And it's devastating because Children have seen their parents grow up with little hope and likewise, um previous ancestors. Um and that sense of um uh hopelessness about the future um is really quite devastating um at the end,

individual level. And it could also mean that even if uh the solution to statelessness, which technically is the grant of nationality does happen um in the near future, it's very unreasonable in that case to expect most people who have been deprived for so long of their rights to suddenly say, well, now I have this gateway, right? Let me go and access all these things when people have not had any um uh experience of doing that before.

So it means that the ability to act those rights that are opened up as a result of having nationality is also diminished. And I think that, you know, we talk a lot of the idea of a second class citizen. I think that what statelessness does at the

individual level is create a second class human. Um you know, a person who is really kind of um deprived in many ways, if you look at the community level, you can see this expanding this kind of sense of um exclusion, marginalization at the community level, which means that it can be harder to integrate over time.

Um And it can be harder for at a community level, for even even if the solution of nationality is granted for this community to really integrate and become a cohesive part of, of society um I think it can also lead to intercommunal conflict. And we've seen this happen in different parts of the world where you have one part of the community that's living side by side with the

citizen community. Um And they can see the, the vast discrepancies in, in their treatment and this, you know, can understand, kindly bubble over into conflict um or even in some cases, violence and then at the state level, you know, over time, if you have a large uh stateless population that has been stateless over time again, you have those same issues um of, of potential conflict.

But if you look at it from the state's perspective as well, you really have a situation of what I would call multidimensional poverty where you've got people who are living in a situation where they're economically poorer, where they're less healthy, where they are less educated and this impacts the state ultimately. Um also in terms of its own development goals. Um and potentially even looking at things like uh tax revenue

and so forth. So I think that the um the consequences of of being stateless over many generations is really very serious and quite underestimated on the show with me today is Associate Professor Radar Govi from the Peter mcmullin Center on statelessness at the University of Melbourne. We will continue our conversation after the break. Keep it here on beyond the ballot box. BFM 89.9. Welcome back to be on the ballot box, I'm Dustin Johan.

And on the show with me today is Associate Professor Rada, go from the Peter mcmullin Center on statelessness at the University of Melbourne and we are talking about women and statelessness at an international level. This conversation will also be available as podcasts. You can look up beyond the ballot box on the BFM app, Spotify or where we get your podcast from. If you're listening to this on Spotify, do give us a follow and drop us a review, it would be really, really helpful.

So rather, you wrote a book on Statelessness with Alice Edwards. And indeed, you told a story about a Lebanese mother. Um Mali, could you tell me about what she went through what you learned, you know, researching and following her story.

So this was one of the first times that I had met women who were particularly affected by the issue of gender discrimination in nationality laws and in particular, um gender discrimination which prevents women from passing nationality to their Children on an equal basis as men or discrimination which prevents women from acquiring or changing uh or retaining their nationality on an equal basis as men.

And Lebanon is one of those countries that has some of the most severe restrictions on an an ability of a woman to, to transfer her nationality. And in this case, um um Ali was, I think she was about 50 years old. Um And she had been married to an Egyptian man. Um And she had seven Children with this man. Uh but for one reason or another, um the her husband had not completed the procedures that were necessary for him to register his Children as Egyptian

as a Lebanese woman. Under the law of Lebanon, she was not permitted to pass her nationality on to any of her Children, but her husband could have passed his uh Egyptian nationality on, but he needed to, you know, complete all the procedures because they were living out of the country, they were living in Lebanon. Um But he

didn't do so. And unfortunately he died. Um And then what she went through was, was nothing short of catastrophic because uh what she subsequently learned was that her husband's brother had actually sought custody of her seven Children and she did not want to hand them over to someone. She did not know she did not want to lose custody of them. So she decided to remain in Lebanon despite the fact that this would have meant that her

Children would not acquire any nationality um at all. Um And she went through a real struggle because she had to get her Children through school. Um She uh part of her story was talking about how one of her Children had a bad accident and actually broke his arm and she had to make a call as an unqualified medical person as to whether it was severe enough to afford to go to a private hospital, hospital to get

the bone set. Um And she made a decision that it was perhaps um you know, something that, that would heal adequately without that level of care. Um But she also saw a lot of difficulties once her Children became adults. So one of her Children actually married a Lebanese man but could not acquire his nationality. Um And furthermore, uh another one of her Children actually married a Lebanese woman and couldn't acquire the nationality from her either.

So her Children were really stuck in this situation um of statelessness. And one of the things I remember she also told me was that she actually owned some property. And as a Lebanese woman, she could not pass her national, could not pass um this property on to her own Children. And she was really worried about what would happen to this property, this, you know, wealth that was in the family once she died because there was no one then

for her to pass the property onto. And she did not want to take the risk of putting it in the name of a friend lest that arrangement not work out and it not be used for the benefit of her Children. So she went through a lot of mental anguish.

Um and it seemed when I met her that that anguish was continuing because she could not see a way of getting her Children um out of the situation and she really felt very guilty about the fact that she'd had Children at all because she had not realized at the time that she'd had them, that they would not, they would be in this situation of statelessness. And she said she would not wish that on anyone. Is there? What do you know what her situation is

right now? Is, does she, you know, has she managed to overcome the situation or do you have any context about that? Unfortunately, I don't, I have not kept in touch with her. Um Also by the way, her name has been changed just to predict her identity. But um that was quite a number of years ago that I, I met her and unfortunately, I don't know her current situation or that of her Children.

What does international law rather say about statelessness? Are there any international human rights principles in which countries should sort of strive to adhere to? Uh yes, there are. So uh there's actually a whole international legal framework set up to address statelessness and central to that are two international conventions that are specifically designed to address statelessness. The first is the 1954 convention relating

to the status of stateless persons. And that convention deals with what provides firstly, the legal definition of who a stateless person is, but also sets out key protections um in terms of basic rights that are to be afforded to people who are stateless And then the second convention is the 1961 convention on the reduction of statelessness, um which is focused

on reducing statelessness by preventing it. And it includes, um you know, certain provisions that states are encouraged to adopt to, for example, include those safeguards that I spoke about earlier to prevent childhood statelessness, such as that um uh provision related to foundlings uh who should acquire a nationality upon being being discovered. Um So these two conventions are

sort of the central part of the international framework. The problem is that for a long time, uh being some of the earliest kind of international conventions. After the Second World War, the uptake was quite limited. We have seen an increase in the number of states becoming parties to these two conventions. But as we stand at the moment, the 1954 convention has approximately 100 states um signatory to it. So that's half of all the states in the world and the 1961 convention

even less. Um So that's not a high rate of ratification, um which would indicate sort of the level of support that we would like to see. However, it's not all gloom and doom. As I said, these conventions are attracting um uh new signatories, which is excellent, which shows that states still see their relevance. Um But importantly, those two conventions have been complemented by other Human Rights treaties.

Um And amongst these, uh maybe I'll highlight too, uh one is the convention on the rights of the child, which has been um, ratified by virtually every state in the world by the US. Um, and that, uh, convention is really important for protecting the right, uh to a nationality for a child. Article seven and article eight of that convention are specifically devoted to looking at the child's right to a nationality, including where a child would

be left stateless. Um, so those are really important. And then getting back to our topic of, you know, um women and nationality rights. The other convention is the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women. Um Article nine of that convention has again, safeguards which say that, you know, states must not discriminate against women in nationality matters and must ensure that women have equal rights with men to confer their nationality, um both to

their spouses and to their Children. So that's really important as well. And that convention also has a high number of state signatories. So that's good. And beyond that, we also see that there are other conventions um including at the regional level, which is something that should not be forgotten that um different regions of the world have also adopted instruments uh to protect the

right to a nationality. So when you combine all of this together, you actually see that there is quite a strong network um of international legal norms uh to protect the right to a nationality and to avoid statelessness. How effective have these international instruments been in safeguarding women's nationality rights? Do these instruments actually have teeth on the ground? So, um, well, it depends on whether you want to look at it from a half, a glass, half full

or a glass, half empty perspective. Um, you know, as I said, the, the key convention, when it comes to protecting women's nationality rights is the convention on the elimination of discrimination against women or Cedar. Um, and it has these two very specific provisions that deal with sort of two key ways in which women are treated unequally often in their ability to confer nationality.

Um 10 years ago, there were 27 states globally that did not give women equal rights with men to confer nationality to their Children and almost 60 states that actually didn't allow them to confer their nationality or acquire it, um, from their male spouses on an equal basis. Um, what we've seen in the last 10 years is that number, particularly where it comes to women, being able to confer their nationality to their Children has dropped from 27 to 24.

So that means that three states have reformed their laws. Now, I take a glass half full approach because I recognize that to change some of these laws is really a herculean effort. Um These laws are not just laws, they are embedded in society. Um It requires attitudes and hearts and minds to change these laws and that is not something that is easy to achieve. Um So I think the fact that um Madagascar Liberia and Sierra Leone, which are the three countries

that have taken this step is something really massive. Um Particularly when you consider that some of these discriminations which existed in the law were actually in those countries, constitutions. So the constitutional change is pretty tough to achieve, uh particularly given that, you know, it does require um some serious attitudinal changes. Um On the other hand, you know, there are still 24

countries with these discriminatory laws. Um We're really sort of hopeful in the international community that that number will soon come down to 23. If Malaysia is able to pass an amendment that would see um women, Malaysian women being able to confer their nationality to their Children on an equal basis as Malaysian men.

Um But I think that uh uh you know, one could, I would say that this instrument has been, you know, important because without it, I don't think we would have seen these uh reforms take place.

Um But that being said, I think that whenever I've talked to anyone about the fact that there are 24 countries in the world with this kind of discrimination, everyone is shocked, everyone thinks that in this day and age, there is absolutely no excuse for a woman not to be able to have the same rights as men when it comes to nationality.

Um, so I guess on that side and that if you take that reaction as sort of, um, something to, to, to, uh, create a benchmark with, then yes, you know, these instruments, uh, should be much more well known and applied by states. Um, unfortunately there is no sort of mechanism at the UN level or the global level to force the state to do this.

But certainly the committee on the elimination of discrimination against women, which is sort of the treaty body for that particular convention has made a lot of statements to that effect. And certainly as part of the Universal Periodic Review, which is another sort of a process by which states can kind of comment on each other's human rights track records. There have been a lot of statements made by states towards those that still maintain discriminatory provisions, encouraging them to

change it. So I think that um there is a much higher level of awareness and the fact that we are continuing to see countries make these changes is very positive before we talk about Malaysia. Is it fair to look at this through a class prism as well? Because all over the world, including here in Malaysia, we see popular footballers, celebrities, the professional class and big investors move from one country to another and gain citizenships sometimes

very quickly without any problems, right? Some are even citizens of multiple countries. But at the same time, there are millions of impoverished people who are stateless, despite them being born in a particular country and living there for decades. How do you see this problem?

Oh, I think it's absolutely an issue of class. I mean, I think there are so many different lenses you can apply but I think that that class is right up there because, uh, what you actually see is as with poverty, a widening gap between those who are citizenship rich and those who are citizenship poor. Um In fact, you will see, you know, wealthy people may have 234 citizenships. Um You know, it's only, you know, it it's amazing to see that in certain countries, you can buy

citizenship. It's actually marketed as in citizenship by investment, you invest in a country and bang you get the citizenship, you get the passport. I mean, this is being done for tax purposes. Um You know, it's no uh no wonder that people have unusual citizenships of small island states

where they to get tax breaks. Um So of course there are, there's the citizenship poor but on the other hand, you have uh so you have the citizenship rich, but on the other hand, you have the citizenship poor who are the state who are rendered, you know, voiceless, who do not have that standing within their country, let alone another country who cannot travel, who have no means of alleviating their poverty, that has been afflicting them for generations who don't have

the access to edu education, which is often the way out of that poverty um who are really kept in this place and quite physically. So because in some places they're not even given the freedom to move. Um So I think it is definitely something that is class based. Um and something that is perpetuated on the basis of class and something that is imposed, in fact by those who are the elites and the ruling who very much want to keep um particular populations,

perhaps even scapegoat certain populations by keeping them stateless. So talking about the Malaysian situation, um which you um you know, touched on just a moment ago, basically, what's happening right now is that the government has come up after being pushed by, you know, many NGO S such as family frontiers and many others to change the very sexist law we have in our constitution where, you know, it's a father with a, who married a foreign foreigner and has a child overseas, they

get to confer their citizenship. But if a mother marries a foreigner and has a child overseas, they can't confer their citizenship. So the push has been to change the word father to parent, which the government has finally agreed to do. So. Unfortunately, what they have put up is, you know, this whole

bundle of changes that they want to make. And essentially they are saying, if you want to and this particular change, you must also accept, you know, 6 to 7 other changes where it is going to perpetuate statelessness for a lot of other categories of people, you know, foundlings, Children of born out of wedlock and things like that. You were in care last week to speak about this issue, to have discussions on this issue.

What is your take on the, the government's trajectory and the, and the proposal when it comes to the nationality laws in Malaysia? So, first of all, can I just sort of start out by saying that the effort particularly by civil society in Malaysia?

And I would also say, you know, affected mothers outside Malaysia to bring this issue into the limelight and to campaign so relentlessly and to have so much courage to sort of um see the this particular issue brought to court um is really something to admire and, and really kind of learn from. Um it shows how we're sustained community pressure by those who are affected,

um can really deliver real change. And I really do hope that this one particular amendment which is a good amendment to, as you say, change the word father to parent and equalize the ability of both parents to confer nationality is really something the government should be commended for.

And I hope it does pass um as for the other amendments, you know, uh as someone who's worked in this field for a while, at least for me, it came a little bit out of the blue and it really sort of in a way leaves a bitter taste in the mouth because on the one hand, you have this really remarkable amendment that really seeks to right, a historical wrong against women. Um, sort of being overshadowed if you like by uh these amendments that do you know, if, if passed will result in many, many,

many Children in particular being left stateless. Um, and, you know, Malaysia is a, is a party to the convention on the rights of the child. Um It has, it has committed to ensuring that, you know, a child has the right to a nationality. Um And the other thing that I would say is that these, these sort of regressive steps, particularly when it comes to

Children are really quite unprecedented. When you look at other states, both in the region and globally, states are not doing this, they're not taking regressive action to increase the number of Children who might be stateless or left at risk of state. In fact, we're seeing the opposite. So states, you know, in general, as I said, we could see a lot more action in this area, but if states are changing their laws, they are changing them for the better.

So this is what makes Malaysia's kind of step in this regard really kind of um out of kilter with what's going on in the rest of the world. And it's also quite unclear the motivations and the evidence for making this kind of change, which would, you know, potentially render more Children stateless is also very unclear. There, there's been some discussion about how this sort of um addresses a national security issue, but what that issue actually is has not been spelled out.

And I think that in, in, in all of these situations, you have to balance, you know, um what is actually a right for a child and given the impact that this will have on Children uh in terms of their ability to access other rights, it really

is a very much a backwards move. And I do hope that um parliamentarians when they come to looking at these amendments and discussing them will, will take a good long look at Malaysia's, you know, international obligations, but also what's good for the country because these Children are going to remain in the country um will just be without um uh the kinds of rights that will allow them to flourish and be integrated citizens uh in a way that that will ultimately

help the country itself. Are there any countries that are handling the issue of statelessness? Well, especially when we look at around the region, but of course, at an international, you can look at various continents and so on and so forth. Um What are the best frameworks for handling the issue of statelessness? Are there any countries that the likes of Malaysia can learn from? Yes. So we have seen so many strong champions in the last 10 or so years, who've taken very positive action

to address statelessness. I mean, starting with, I suppose the region, you know, uh and I suppose the region more more broadly, if you look at the broader Asia Pacific region, um the the country that has sort of achieved the most in terms of numbers uh is Kyrgyzstan uh in Central Asia which has actually in 2019 announced that it actually resolved all of its hundreds of thousands of cases of state.

These were legacy cases from the breakup of the US sr and the work that it did to address statelessness um was really, really remarkable and it was able to conclude all the existing cases. Now, of course, statelessness doesn't remain resolved forever. There may be new cases bubbling up but they are proactively addressing those which is very positive to see um closer to the sort of Southeast

Asia region. I think that um some standout examples include um uh the Philippines, which has taken a very proactive approach to addressing statelessness um both within its territories, but also in recognition of the fact that there are um uh Filipino migrants who are working in neighboring countries. Um So there's been a really proactive push to try and ensure that um they grant their nationality where appropriate to, to,

to those people. Um But I think it's also taken the matter seriously in terms of setting up a committee within the government that is focused on statelessness, recognizing that it's an issue um and developed a national action plan to sort of plan the steps needed to address the the problem. So I think that that's also um a really strong example, we also see um in the region. Uh States like Vietnam and Thailand, which have also, you know, recognized that they have an issue

of statelessness. Uh Again, different causes there, the background of stateless communities in those two countries being on the basis of their ethnicity. Um But I think this real acknowledgement that um while it might take time and you know, for example, Thailand, they have hundreds and thousands of cases of stateless people who live

in the hill tribe regions. Recognizing that while it might take time to resolve statelessness, there's still kind of a positive and a forward momentum, not this sort of stepping back progressively uh kind of approach. So I think that inspiration can be drawn from, from those countries for sure. And certainly, when you look at the issue of gender discrimination in the nationality laws, as I mentioned, there are these three African states that have taken very positive steps.

Um and it would be really good to see other countries including Malaysia follow suit. Rather, it's been a very fascinating conversation before we wrap up. Would you have a final message for us with regard to the issue of statelessness, especially um you know, how and how it impacts women. So I think that, you know, I've, I've worked on this issue for quite a number of years now and I've, you know, been very fortunate to um meet people who

have been stateless and hear from them about their stories. And, um, you know, I think one thing that I've been struck by is that statelessness. Even the word sounds a bit cold and technical. But when you actually meet someone who's stateless and you see the kind of impacts that they have on it have on in their life, there is no way that you would want to wish that on anyone. And what stateless people are asking for is nothing unusual. They're not

asking to be made into millionaires. They're not asking to live in the fanciest houses. They're basically being asked, you know, they're asking for an opportunity to live normal lives and to basically be equipped to take advantage of

the very basic rights that we all enjoy. And I think that when you meet someone who is stateless and you see what they're living through and given that it happens over the course of their entire life, particularly for women, uh you realize that the toll that this can take,

it's almost like an ongoing emergency. It's not sort of a day to day or I just live my life like this and sometimes it's difficult and sometimes it's not, it's really hard all the time and the toll that, that takes and the resilience that these people show, um in, in the face of, you know, uh such deprivation is really something uh that, you know, the whole world should understand and there should be a lot more action to resolve it.

It's not that difficult. Certainly, in the case of sex discrimination in the nationality laws, while it does require a change of attitude in communities, it can be done and countries are showing that it, it, it has been done and successfully. So, um and so I would just say that I think that if, if much more could be done to just um see this issue as something that is allowing humans to be human beings and fulfill um just the basic capacities that

we all want to enjoy. Um That would take us forward in terms of not seeing this as some, some uh step that's too big to jump. It's a very, very simple step that needs to be taken to drastically improve the lives of um quite a lot of people around the world. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you very much. That was associate professor rather go from the Peter mcmullin Center on Statelessness University of Melbourne. I'm Dain Johan and this has been beyond the ballot box BFM 89.9.