Stories & Experiences

Hey everyone!I am Marejke. I am a student of journalism at the Akademie für Publizistik in Hamburg. I would like to draw more attention to the important issue of statelessness in Germany and would therefore like to write a short portrait of a stateless person. Hence the question of whether someone affected would be willing to talk to me about it? And would it be possible for me to accompany the person in everyday life (for example when visiting the doctor/office or similar)?Many thanks in advance!Best regards,Marejke 

Hello,I was born in the Netherlands, I left when I was two years-old to America, I didn't realize I was stateless until I was in my early 20s. I'm 36 now. I've tried reaching out for help from the Dutch embassy received no help from them. I've tried to get help from immigration lawyers but they were clueless about statelessness and just wasted my time and alot of money for nothing. I've also reached out to UNHCR and they have told me they are working on ending statelessness but it's been years and it looks like there will never be any  progress. I was part of the first stateless grassroots organization in America called United Stateless, They have accomplished some great things and helped raise awareness on statelessness in America. But, I  haven't spoken to them in a long time. I think working together with other stateless organizations would be a great benefit for both. It's going to take alot of work to end statelessness.  For me, It's just been extremely dif

Liebe Community, ich arbeite als Journalistin für den ORF Österreichischen Rundfunk in Wien. Für die Online-Nachrichtenplattformen ORF.at und ORF Topos schreibe ich einen Artikel über die Situation von staatenlosen Menschen in Österreich. Dazu möchte ich ein gefilmtes Interview mit einer betroffenen Person führen, die über ihre Erfahrungen spricht. Kurz zum Ablauf: Idealerweise führen wir das Interview über Zoom und die Person nimmt sich selbst währenddessen mit dem Handy auf und schickt mir das Video danach zu, der Beitrag wird dann in den Artikel eingefügt.  Das Interview müssten wir bis zum 26.1 führen, Dauer maximal 30 Minuten. Bei Interesse bitte so schnell wie möglich mir schreiben leonie.markovics@orf.at, ich melde mich dann bei euch mit genaueren Infos. Danke & liebe Grüße,Leonie M.

My name is Taha Ezam. I studied chemical engineering in Iran, but because of the problems that existed for the Baha'is, I had to leave Iran with my mother without anything.As of 2015, my mother and I are religious refugees awaiting resettlement .During the long resettlement process, refugees face many challenges to live in Turkey, such as finding a good job, education, citizenship rights, etc.

Hello, my name is Victoria and I am a new team member of the Statefree team, working as an Office Manager and supporting the community. I am very happy about this and I am very excited about the work.😊.

 Dear Diary, it's me, Prince Lenny Penaloza...  Today, just like every other day, the struggles continue as a stateless person and there's just one sentence to summarise it all, "a visibly horrific, inhumane existence" boosted by several laws and policies in place by the system that deprives me of basic human rights, hence making life literally a living hell. In other words, only who feels it knows it, because the descriptions of existing in such a situation as a stateless person in today's modern world are heart-wrenching.  Even in a world where the various levels of systematic breakdowns and further sub-breakdowns of human clas

ENS has recently done a collab with Refugee Action’s ‘Experts by Experience’ podcast in the UK, and some fantastic community members spoke about the experience of statelessness and the intersection between stateless and the asylum system, in the UK. Please give it a listen!Twitter: https://twitter.com/ENStatelessness/status/1686026071659982849?s=20Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CvZQXVhs7B4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

hello guys, first of all I would like to thank you guys for publishing such a great site. I have been recognized as a stateless person for almost 2 years. Before that, I was registered as an Unresolved Citizen with the authorities. Now to my problem, I wanted to apply for a registration certificate (Meldebescheinigung) at the German citizens' office, since the registration certificate contains the citizenship, I asked the employee to change this from uncleared to stateless and then presented my travel document for stateless persons. Since the employee was not familiar with this, he asked a supervisor. She didn't want to change it, as other documents have to be presented to prove this. It didn't make any sense to me at all. When asked what documents I have to present, she got angry and expelled me from the building. Is it normal to be treated as if you were a second class person just because you are stateless? With the German naturalization one can prove one's statelessness with the

Dear Community,One of our community members is looking for a lawyer who can support them in seeking proper protection and a secure legal status. Do you have any recommendations of lawyers/paralegals/law firms based in Turkey who are able to advice a stateless individual?It would be very much appreciated🙏🏿!@ISI  @Amal de Chickera @TamaraS @Laura van Waas 

Hi Community,I am so excited to have found this group and be a part of it. I look forward to meeting and sharing ideas with everyone as regards the issue of statelessness in the world. I believe there is hope for stateless refugees including children and I appreciate all those working together in unity to eradicate statelessness.Shout out to Christiana for all the work you do.

Hi everyone! We are planning to officially launching the Global Statelessness Movement later this year and for the launch, we will be screening a video of stateless people reading out the Manifesto in different languages. We are therefore calling on stateless individuals across the world to record a video of yourselves reading out the Manifesto.We will be making videos in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian and Malaysian. The link to the several language translations of the Manifesto are here: (Ara

⚡️ New blog by Caia Vlieks, Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion's Research & Education officer, presenting findings from her PhD, analysing legal approaches to #statelessness within the #EU, examining the role that European 

 Hi Statefree Community,  We are 180 Degrees Consulting, a non-profit student consultancy. We are surveying people who have or have had personal experience with statelessness on behalf of the platform Statefree. The survey helps us to understand how the Statefree community can impro

APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR THE SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2022 ISI INTERNSHIP INTAKE! ISI recruits interns to assist with research and advocacy on statelessness and human rights within various ISI programmes. Our interns are responsible for tasks including desk research on topics in the field of statelessness and human rights; compiling and analysing human rights documents such as those issued by UN treaty bodies or under the Universal Periodic Review mechanism; undertaking comparative analysis of law, policy or jurisprudence from different national legal systems; and more.Application Deadline July 1st 2022, 5pm UK For more information about the internship and how to apply, please click HERE 

Hello dear community, I am writing my thesis on the current situation in Switzerland on the statelessness determination procedure (SDP) or the lack thereof. I am researching what the most important legal measures are to ensure a fair procedure. Right now there are no specific laws in place regarding the SDP. The procedure currently relies on general administrative procedural law. This can lead to challenging situations in the procedure. I am focussing on the fact that, the procedure in Switzerland is primarily in written form, the standard of evidence is very high and to access free legal aid and translation assistance high requirements have to be met. If you are interested in the issue or maybe even have personal experience or knowledge I would be happy to chat and share more of my work! It does not matter if there is no link to Switzerland, as this is an international topic per definition 🇨🇭🌍🌎🌏 Just send me a personal message 😊 Kind regard

ISI interviewed Aleksejs, a non-citizen from Latvia, on his experiences of fleeing the Ukraine war, as a stateless person.Read the full interview here!

First, a disclaimer. I am not a lawyer, so all I found and write here is at best an educated guess. And I recognize that the fight against the laws, rules and regulations that keep people stateless is the first priority. Some might refuse to even consider any shortcuts to freedom like marriage or adoption, because it is degrading to subordinate such deeply personal matters to the circumvention of laws and regulations, no matter how bad these are. In the view of this and the many difficulties and problems with adoption, I can only guess that for many stateless people adoption is not an acceptable way to go.On the other hand there may be a few situations where marriage or adoption are appropriate for one reason or another. In such a case it is useful to know the rules and to know what to expect. Marriage is an obvious case. I have not found a legal rule that marriage, or adoption, always conveys statehood, but I’m as good as certain that it does.I will write about some o

In case you are in the process of opening a bank account in Germany: We recently tried to open one for Statefree. As you can imagine, verifying my identity was a bit of a hassle, but it did work in the end. We chose the “Postident” process and I was surprised that there was at least a little knowledge around different forms of identity documentation stateless people have.  My context: I have a “Reiseausweis für Ausländer” aka travel document for foreigners and a residence permitThe bank:  GLS Bank Ways that didn’t work:  Verific

 Welcome to the space for knowledge & insights from people’s experiences  What this space is forThis category is for you to Ask for advice and other people’s experiences ‍♂️ around statelessness issues that affect you Proactively share experiences  that might help other stateless people or allies