24th Feb 2015 It is not easily imaginable that some have no nationalities but clearly this happens and ECOWAS is ready to deliberate on the matter.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States and Cote D’Ivoire’s government have began to co-host the first Ministerial Conference on Statelessness in West Africa. Discussions began yesterday and will end on the twenty fifth February, in Cote d’Ivoire.
Statelessness is defined as a situation whereby an individual residing in a state is denied all the privileges and right given to its citizens because he or she has no document to prove that he or she is a citizen. These individuals are typically in this situation because they have difficulties proving they possess links to a State due, for instance, to a lack of birth registration and personal documentation that traces their origins and could confirm their identity.
Also, issues like populations without birth certificates, abandoned children, undocumented stranded migrants, and individuals living in areas of state succession and border disputes constitute some of the major groups of people at risk of statelessness in West Africa.
The conference has been inaugurated by Alassane Ouattara, Cote d’Ivoire’s president, and is being attended by Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Civil society organizations, national human rights institutions, United Nations agencies, international experts, and diplomatic representatives from across West Africa.
Nice to see the continent becoming more conscious of these things