Citizens of nowhere



A report published by the United Nations’ refugee agency has urged the Maltese government to sign treaties granting rights to ‘stateless persons’ and implement a system that recognises them.

The United Nations defines stateless persons as “anyone who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law” – it is a status held by an estimated 10 million persons worldwide. 

The status is a virtual guarantee that the person affected will encounter serious obstacles in accessing their fundamental rights and could, in a worst case scenario, result in repatriation to a country which does not recognise them as a national. This would leave them with no permanent residence status and related rights.

The issue of stateless persons was highlighted in a report published last August by the UNHCR titled “Mapping Statelessness in Malta”, which sheds light on the shortcomings of Malta’s legal framework regarding the issue.

Shortcomings identified in the report include the fact that Malta is yet to sign the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the absence of a procedure for identifying stateless persons in Malta and the lack of a provision in domestic legislation to facilitate the naturalisation of these persons.

It proposes a number of measures to deal with this problem, including ratifying the European Convention on Nationality and the setting up of an effective procedure to determine statelessness and ensure the identification of these persons, irrespective of whether they are lawful residents or not.

It suggests that those claiming to be stateless could be granted a temporary residence permit while the process to determine statelessness is underway. It also advocates the affording to stateless persons similar rights to those granted to asylum seekers, including a prohibition against returning stateless persons to country of origin.

Highlighting the dangers of pushing back stateless persons, it quotes an IOM report on one applicant for assisted voluntary return who was not recognised as a citizen by the country he claimed to originate from, leaving him ‘stranded’ in Malta as a failed asylum seeker with no travel documentation, no chance to be naturalised and no other country which recognises him as a citizen.

Citizenship loopholes

Malta automatically grants citizenship to stateless children born in Malta, however, the report highlights provisions in the Maltese Citizenship Act which currently still discriminate between children born in and out of wedlock for purposes of citizenship as particular areas of concern and recommends they be amended.

As it currently stands, the Citizenship Act does not treat men and women equally when it comes to the conferral of nationality to their offspring and this is because the law still distinguishes between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ children.  In fact, this law places a limitation on the acquisition of nationality by ‘illegitimate’ children of Maltese fathers, stipulating that “any reference to the father of a person shall, in relation to a person born out of wedlock and not legitimated, be construed as a reference to the mother of that person.”

Effectively this means that a child born out of wedlock to a Maltese father and stateless mother will, unless it is acknowledged by the father, inherit its mother’s lack of citizenship.

The removal of this discrimination was also recommended during Malta’s second review by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2013, where Malta was urged to harmonise national law and policy with Malta’s international convention obligations.

Real lives

Statelessness can happen at all stages of life, however. The story told by 27-year old Kafil is one frequently repeated by stateless persons. Kafil was born in Rakhine State in Myanmar in 1987 to a family of the Rohingya ethnic group, one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

When Kafil was just 7, he lost his father to a treatable illness due in no small part to the fact that the Rohingya are only allowed limited access to medical treatment. Aged 13, he had to start working in the rice fields to supplement the income from his mother’s seamstress work.

“Working in the rice fields was tough” said Kafil, “but Rohingya were not able to get any of the nice jobs so I did not have a choice.”

He describes being made to feel like a foreigner in his own country, often being told by other Burmese that Myanmar was “not his country”. After being frivolously accused of stealing bamboo from around the rice fields where he worked, Kafil was forced to flee to Bangladesh but returned to Myanmar after a few months, sleeping in the jungle to avoid police search parties and risking a heavy fine or prison sentence should he be caught.

He was smuggled to Libya to work but with the outbreak of civil war in that country, Kafil was forced to flee once more. The 27-year old was rescued in Maltese territorial waters by an AFM patrol boat as he was en route to Europe and granted refugee status in Malta. Denied citizenship by his homeland, Kafil is classified as a “stateless person”.

“I work in Malta as often as I can and I live in private accommodation with friends. There are no other people from Myanmar here. I wish I could help my younger brother escape from our country but my refugee status does not allow me to apply for family reunification with him.”

The UN report highlights the fact that the process of naturalisation in Malta is discretionary, and that there are no legal provisions for a review or appeal from negative decisions. It notes that only 24 stateless individuals have obtained Maltese citizenship through this process between 2008 and 2010.
With all this in mind, Kafil is under no illusion as to his chances of obtaining Maltese citizenship. He doesn’t see Malta as a long-term option.

“I know many people who have been here for a very long time and they still don’t have Maltese citizenship,” he says. “I know there is no prospect for citizenship here”.