Children Without a State Response
Introduction
Children remain the most vulnerable people across the world and require protection and have special needs. They also require services from states and governments to ensure that they enjoy their childhood. However, many of them are at risk of becoming refugees and being stateless. For instance, about 36% of all births across the world have no registration. The implication is that close to 48 million children under five years lack legal identity and cannot make any formal claim of belonging to any country (Bhabha, 2011). Imperatively, based on chapter readings from the book “Children Without a State: A Global Human Rights Challenge,” this essay describes the relationship between statelessness and refugeeness by highlighting their similarities and differences. The essay argues that while statelessness is a more complicated issue, refugeeness is a situation that can lead to a more practical solution based on existing interventions and frameworks. However, the issues are global and local concerns because of their effects on children.
Relationship between Statelessness and Refugeeness
Millions of children are refugees in other countries away from their native homes. As such, many of the children refugees are stateless because they have no legal claim to belong to independent states. Studies show that at least 1.5 million refugees across the world are also affected by statelessness. Due to displacement, millions of refugees are at the risk of being left with no nationality. Statelessness occurs under different situations. For instance, some children are born without nationality, and others are displaced due to different political and social issues making them stateless and refugees. For instance, undocumented children and students in the U.S. lack identification documents to prove their nationality yet access services. However, the inability to prove nationality may not make a child stateless. Conversely, it becomes more challenging for a child to establish their bond with a state if they do not have any proof of identity.
Refugees have an increased risk of being stateless due to displacement. However, not all refugees are stateless, and not all stateless individuals qualify to be refugees. In many instances, a majority of stateless persons have never been refugees. The example of undocumented immigrants in Western countries from developing nations demonstrates that while many of these persons do not have identification documents, their children are born and start accessing host country’s services without a national identity. As observed in Chapter 9 of the book about undocumented students in the U.S., these individuals do not have a national identity and are stateless (Bhabha, 2011). However, they are not refugees. The undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are close to 13million people and have not documentation of the nation of origin. These individuals have children who do not have a nationality.
Differences
Children become stateless yet not refugees due to political conflicts, as demonstrated in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. A majority of the Palestinians in Israel do not have documentation to identify them as Israeli nationals. While these children are stateless due to the displacement, they are not refugees. The implication is that while stateless occurs due to several reasons at birth, refugeeness happens mainly due to displacement arising from both natural and human-made situations. According to Bhabha (2011), legal stateless occurs when political situations compel individuals to live in a state of confusion and lack of identity. The implication is that children born in such situations are not registered because of their parents’ legal status. Children with Palestinian descent in Israel are stateless since they cannot identify with the nation of Israel as their parents are not considered citizens.
Countries like Italy have laws that allow thousands of asylum seekers to get to their shores. However, many of these immigrants are considered refugees and benefit from social services offered by both state and non-state actors, especially non-profit organizations. The similarity between stateless and refugee children is that both are serious human rights issues that require international interventions (Bhabha, 2011). Statelessness is a more complex issue, but being a refugee is a straightforward matter that allows international agencies to offer mitigations designed to ensure that the people access better services as they await eventual return to their nations of origin.
Similarities
Both refugees and stateless children require protections and effective identification. Statelessness is more compounded by the inability to document persons for effective tracing and tracking of their nations of origin due to socioeconomic and political situations. Therefore, as human rights’ issues, refugees and stateless children cannot exercise the fundamental rights associated with citizenship. Stateless children cannot freely travel and may not have access to public utilities and services that include education, welfare support, and health care. Roma children in Italy and undocumented persons seeking higher education in the U.S. provides examples of the concerns that these people have and the need to address challenges inherent to both stateless and refuge children. These children require stability and effective identity as ways of dealing with global security issues like terrorism and violence (Bhabha, 2011). When these children attain effective integration, they grow into responsible adults who can impact the world positively. The human rights issues of concern for both stateless and refugee children include abuses like detention and deportation as well as social marginalization where they have limited access to health and educational services in communities that they live in these countries.
Conclusion
The state of children affected by the refugee problem and statelessness compels human rights activists to understand the type of deprivation that the millions of the affected young people face. As such, statelessness and refugeeness are significant human rights issues that affect millions of children in different parts of the world and require effective solutions. These children require protection and accessibility to fundamental human rights due to the deprivation that they encounter.
Reference
Bhabha, J. ed. (2011). Children Without a State: A Global Human Rights Challenge. Cambridge,
MA: MIT University Press.