Staatloosheid - Greg Constantine
sleeping
A Dalit man and his grandson rest. The man’s family has lived in the Terai in southern Nepal for over five generations, but he still lacks citizenship. While this was extended to millions of people in the Terai in 2007, an unknown number, including Muslims, indigenous people and Dalits, are still excluded from Nepalese citizenship and the rights and opportunities this brings.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
sand
Dalits who are not hired to farm the land often end up as labourers earning the equivalent of less than US $1 a day. In this image, two of them shovel gravel and rocks from the dried bed of the Khuti River.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
sabah
The children of Sabah work from six in the morning to around 1pm. Most live in slums in Kota Kinabalu or on Pulau Gaya. Some sleep in the street. After a day of work, a group of children sleep or gamble with their earnings.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
room
Overcrowding plagues many Bihari settlements in Bangladesh. Living conditions are cramped and pose safety and health problems. Families of as many as 15 members live in rooms of less than 10 square metres. This family of seven work in their newspaper-covered room in Kurmi Tola Camp in the capital, Dhaka.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
rohingya
Thousands of the Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have not been registered and have received little assistance. A woman sits on the side of the road with her grandchild at the old Tal Camp near Teknaf. The government has since relocated the camp residents to a safer and less congested area.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
kid
An estimated 30,000 children of Filipino and Indonesian descent in Malaysia’s Sabah state are stateless or at risk of statelessness. They have little access to social services or to the school system. As a result, many children begin work at an early age in places such as the fish market in the capital, Kota Kinabalu.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
glass
A new bride (middle) and her friends take a ceremonial trip from her home to the bridegroom’s house, where they will both live. Though they consider themselves to be people of Nepal, many Dalits have little hope that they will ever be recognized as citizens.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
eyes
Blind in one eye after being struck by a foreman while engaged in forced labour, this Rohingya man fled from Myanmar in the mid-1990s. He is one of an estimated 200,000 refugees living in southern Bangladesh. Most stateless people are not refugees, but those who are must be treated in accordance with international law.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
galjeel
A Galjeel boy in an abandoned classroom in eastern Kenya. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Galjeel were stripped of their Kenyan identity documents and evicted from their land.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
bihari
Camps and settlements where Biharis live have seen little maintenance in 35 years and lack water and sanitation. Some 4,000 people live in Kurmi Tola Camp in Dhaka. The camp is littered with garbage and raw sewage.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
Bengal
Prior to the resolution of the statelessness situation, the husband of this 20-year-old Bihari woman left her to marry a local in the hope of obtaining Bangladeshi citizenship. The girl is going blind and has no family to help support her and her baby. She makes paper bags for money.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
beard
A 60-year-old Urdu speaker, or Bihari, in Bangladesh’s Pat Godam Camp in the town of Mymensingh holds a photo of himself at the age of 19. ‘My family had 41 acres of land. We moved into the camp when the Bangladesh government seized it from us. In 1971, everything was taken from us.’ The Biharis were stateless from 1971 until 2008, when the High Court confirmed them as citizens of Bangladesh.
© UNHCR / G. Constantine
