Press statement: LHR launches guide to aid practitioners in eradicating statelessness in SA

Lawyers for Human Rights has launched the Promoting Citizenship and Preventing Statelessness in South Africa: A Practitioner’s Guide that will assist practitioners in dealing with the growing phenomenon of statelessness in South Africa.

A stateless person is someone who is not recognised as a citizen by any state under the operation of its laws.

LHR began the Statelessness Project in 2011 with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to reduce and prevent statelessness in South Africa.

Over the past four years we have learned valuable lessons in assisting stateless persons and persons at risk of statelessness through direct legal services and litigation. We provide legal advice, determine citizenship status and assist clients to apply for legal status and documentation.

The Guide was drafted with the intention of aiding attorneys, paralegals and social workers in promoting access to citizenship and combating statelessness in the country. The guide is a collection of lessons learned in our effort to assist clients in accessing nationality. The guide is hoped to assist in demystifying the current legal framework relating to nationality and statelessness and will provide tools to play an active role in the ongoing reform of this field of law.

Stateless persons are among the most vulnerable and are often denied the enjoyment of rights including equality before the law, the right to work, education and healthcare. Being stateless means that individuals may not even be able to marry or register the births of their own children. It is a universal problem. Even persons born in South Africa to South African parents can be stateless.

“Everybody has the right to nationality” - The Universal Declaration of Rights

Further reading:
Promoting Citizenship and Preventing Statelessness in South Africa: A Practitioner’s Guide
The Belonging Part 1
LHR Report on Statelessness and Nationality in South Africa
LHR’s photographic exhibition Invisible People in South Africa