Last week, we organised a lunchtime event in the Council of Europe to present our #StatelessnessINDEX – a new online tool developed by the European Network on Statelessness, which for the first time enables instant comparison of how different countries protect people without a nationality.
We were pleased to hear strong endorsement from the Council of Europe officials and national parliamentarians who pledged to work with us and our members to find practical solutions to address statelessness.
All European states have obligations in international law to protect stateless people and prevent statelessness, but our research shows that in many cases, these have not been translated into effective laws at the national level. More than half a million men, women and children in Europe - both recent migrants and those who have lived in the same place for generations - are falling through these gaps. For them, statelessness means denial of the basic rights many of us take for granted: to go to school or work, to get married or register the birth of your child, to ‘legally exist’.
We designed the Index so that those working on the issue can quickly identify which areas of law, policy and practice need to be urgently improved and so that states can be held to account with regard to fulfilling their international obligations.
