Special Report: Stateless - Photos
Sanelisiwe Maliza | 24 August, 2011 11:56
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A Rohingya boy bathes in a common bath place in a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, in this file picture taken August 19, 2011. In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for Rohingyas to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar and up to 300,000 in Bangladesh. Picture: ANDREW BIRAJ / REUTERS
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tateless Nina Tamang, 18, gestures as she talks with her Grandmother Ratna Maya Tamang outside her home at the outskirts of Nepal's capital August 14, 2011. Despite her mother being a Nepali national, Nina cannot become a citizen of Nepal because her father who had abandoned her mother after Nina was born is absent and she has no official proof of his nationality. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar
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Rohingya girls carry wood from the forest near a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, in this file picture taken August 19, 2011. In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for Rohingyas to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar and up to 300,000 in Bangladesh. Picture: ANDREW BIRAJ / REUTERS
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A Rohingya girl carries water in a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar in this August 19, 2011 file picture. In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for Rohingyas to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar and up to 300,000 in Bangladesh. Picture: ANDREW BIRAJ / REUTERS
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Myanmar refugee from the Rohingya ethnic minority, Murshidah Rofique, 3, smiles as she visits a refugee centre in Kuala Lumpur in this August 16, 2011 file picture. In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for Rohingyas to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar and up to 300,000 in Bangladesh. Picture: BAZUKI MUHAMMED/ REUTERS
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Roma children play on a horse-cart on the outskirts of the eastern Hungarian town of Hajduhadhaz in this March 22, 2011 file picture. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Roma have no nationality, they often do not register the birth of a child and do not hold official property titles, preferring to pass their houses to relatives informally. This makes it difficult to prove where they are from and leaves them very vulnerable. Picture: BERNADETT SZABO / REUTERS
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Zena Bashir does abolution as preparation ahead of the Friday prayers in Makina in Kibera slums in capital Nairobi in this August 5, 2011 file picture. The Nubians have lived in Kenya for over 100 years but they are regularly denied national identity cards and passports which they need to work, vote, travel, own a mobile phone, open a bank account, attend university or enter government buildings. Picture: NOOR KHAMIS / REUTERS
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Young Myanmar refugee from the Rohingya ethnic minority, Musharafah Ali Johar, attends her English class in Kuala Lumpur in this August 16, 2011 file picture.In 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for Rohingyas to get full citizenship. Many fled to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 following a government crackdown. Today, an estimated 800,000 live in Myanmar and up to 300,000 in Bangladesh. Picture: BAZUKI MUHAMMAD / REUTERS
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Nubian girls sell snack outside a Mosque for breaking the fast in Nairobis's Kibera slums in this August 5, 2011 file picture. The Nubians have lived in Kenya for over 100 years but they are regularly denied national identity cards and passports which they need to work, vote, travel, own a mobile phone, open a bank account, attend university or enter government buildings. Picture: NOOR KHAMIS / REUTERS
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A young boy at the Mosque during Friday prayers in Makina Mosque in Nairobis's Kibera slums in this August 5, 2011 file picture. The Nubians have lived in Kenya for over 100 years but they are regularly denied national identity cards and passports which they need to work, vote, travel, own a mobile phone, open a bank account, attend university or enter government buildings.Picture: NOOR KHAMIS / REUTERS
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Marus, 7, warms his hands next to a portable stove before going to school in Las Tablas, northern Madrid, in this March 21, 2011 file picture. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Roma have no nationality, they often do not register the birth of a child and do not hold official property titles, preferring to pass their houses to relatives informally. This makes it difficult to prove where they are from and leaves them very vulnerable. Picture: SUSANA VERA/ REUTERS
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Members of the Kenyan Nubian Council of Elders look at a 1934 map of Kibera, in this August 5, 2011 file picture. The Nubians have lived in Kenya for over 100 years but they are regularly denied national identity cards and passports which they need to work, vote, travel, own a mobile phone, open a bank account, attend university or enter government buildings. Picture: NOOR KHAMIS / REUTERS
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A man sits outside a caravan in an illegal camp of Roma in Saint Andre lez Lille, near Lille, northern France, in this August 9, 2010 file picture. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Roma have no nationality, they often do not register the birth of a child and do not hold official property titles, preferring to pass their houses to relatives informally. This makes it difficult to prove where they are from and leaves them very vulnerable. Picture: PASCAL ROSSIGNOL / REUTERS
Rejected by the country they call home and denied the most basic of rights, stateless people live in a shadowy limbo -- in the words of one such person, like being "between the earth and the sky".
Up to 15 million people are stateless – denied nationality by any country. It’s a situation that causes immense psychological damage, breaks up families, destroys children’s futures and exacerbates poverty. In extreme cases it can even fuel wars.
On August 25, 2011, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR will launch an international campaign to highlight the plight of the world’s stateless – possibly the most invisible people in the world.
