“[M]y husband and I could not legally register our marriage in our host country (and we couldn’t do it in Syria due to being wanted by security forces). This legal limbo impelled us to make the decision not to have children. Because Syria’s nationality law denies women the right to pass nationality to their children born abroad, … our lack of a marriage certificate meant any children would also be unable to secure Syrian nationality from their father. We refused to bring stateless, undocumented children into a world that would deny their existence.”
– Rasha Altabshi
Yesterday marked 65 years since the world came together around a fundamental principle: Everyone has the right to belong to a country. The Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness enshrines the right to a nationality and establishes a framework to prevent statelessness, the condition of not being recognized as a citizen by any country.
Many of us are fortunate enough to never have to think about what it means to have a nationality. For those without one, the consequences can impact every part of life, limiting access to education, healthcare, and employment; closing off opportunities; and even separating families.
As Director of the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, a coalition housed at WRC working for the reform of laws that deny women the same right as men to pass citizenship to their children or spouses, I have seen firsthand the profound harm caused by the denial of nationality. I have seen the crushing look in the eyes of young people who can’t follow their dreams because citizenship is out of reach, simply because the law does not value their mother’s citizenship equally with men’s.
In my work with organizations advocating for nationality rights, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside partners who inspire me every day, including the executive directors of United Stateless and Warsheh Team. Both recently shared their own stories on the WRC blog, writing powerfully about how statelessness, or even the threat of it, has upended their lives and the lives of millions of others.
- Karina Ambartsoumian-Clough, Executive Director of United Stateless, an impressive US-based organization led by stateless people, shared her story of living without a nationality after fleeing her home country—and then founding an organization to advocate for people like her.
- Rasha Altabshi, Executive Director of Warsheh Team, reflected on her experience of displacement, the impact of discriminatory nationality laws, and what the future of protection must look like for refugee women and girls.
Both women remind us that the right to a nationality is fundamental, and that stateless people and others who have long been overlooked by governments and the international system cannot be left behind. As Karina powerfully writes, “No person should be left without protection, and no person should be left without belonging.”
– Catherine Harrington, Director, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights
