Children At-Risk of Statelessness and their Constraints to Citizenship

Statelessness exist around the world and is equally prevalent in Southeast Asia. According to UNHCR, Myanmar is listed as having the highest number of stateless persons at 938,000 in 2015, while Malaysia had 11,869 persons under UNHCR ™s statelessness mandate. UNHCR Malaysia has said that this number does not include the number of stateless persons in Sabah, which could significantly raise the number. In practice, a child of Filipino descent is considered ˜at-risk ™ of statelessness since family lineage for most of them can be traced back to the Philippines, which thus renders them not stateless. Generally, children at-risk of statelessness face a myriad of challenges in accessing basic rights in Malaysia including the lack of legal identity. This poses a huge impact on the child ™s access to fundamental rights, including education and healthcare.