It is an honor to participate in this panel and to represent both the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) and the NGO Committee on Migration of which ICMC is a proud member. As our names reflect, migration is the central “lens” with which our two organizations view statelessness; specifically, in the context of today’s panel, we want to address the triple jeopardy of being young, migrant, and stateless – a truly perilous realm fraught with protection risks of the highest order, including exploitation, trafficking, and forced marriages.

Though the vast majority of the world’s stateless are not migrants, and – conversely - most migrants are not stateless, the link between the two is extremely strong and sometimes causal. The sheer act of crossing a border for a person who is already stateless enormously increases his or her protection risks. In fact, according to UN studies of Thailand’s stateless hill tribes, “lack of proof of citizenship is the single greatest risk factor for a girl… to be trafficked or otherwise exploited.” Stateless minors are easy prey for traffickers. Statelessness triggers and exacerbates trafficking.

The very act of crossing a border can also drive or cause statelessness for young people on the move. That is, one’s chances of becoming stateless increase when a border is crossed. You have all likely heard of migrants whose identification documents and/or proof of nationality have been taken away, which as a practical (if not legal) matter render the victim’s nationality largely “ineffective”.

But I want to call your attention today to two other groups of migrant youth and young adults that may surprise you, two vulnerable populations where a veritable boom in the growth of statelessness has been reported by ICMC’s regional office in Indonesia and our Asia Pacific partner, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

To read this statement in its entirety, please see the pdf below.

ST Bloom TripleJeoparyStateless Jun11.pdf (408.42 KB)