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UNHCR: Anti-Refugee and Migrant Sentiment Threaten Battle to End
Statelessness

Lisa Schlein

   GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - The U.N. refugee agency warns the battle to stamp
   out global statelessness is being threatened by growing anti-refugee
   and migrant sentiment, as well as rising nationalism.

   More than 220,000 people have acquired citizenship since the U.N.
   refugee agency launched a 10-year global campaign in 2014 to end
   statelessness. Now at the mid-point of the campaign, activists welcome
   the progress that has been made, but note so much more remains to be
   done.

   They report at least four million people still live without legal
   documents to prove who they are.Australian actor and UNHCR Goodwill
   Ambassador Cate Blanchett said statelessness has a devastating impact
   on their lives. She said they experience marginalization and exclusion
   from cradle to grave.

   "And those of us who have a nationality and have a paper identity, it
   is often very hard for us to imagine, because we take this for granted,
   just like breathing.It is hard for us to imagine the degree of
   invisibility and despair often that stateless people experience," she
   said.

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