Human Rights Advocacy Centre calls for mapping out studies on statelessness

By Iddi Z. Yire, GNA Special Correspondent in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, Courtesy of the UNHCR

Abidjan, Feb 27, GNA - The Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC) has called for a mapping out study on the number of stateless persons living in Ghana.

Ms Wendy Abbey, the Technical Adviser of HRAC, said identifying who was stateless and evaluating the size and characteristics of the stateless population in a state were prerequisites for effective advocacy and the creation of programmes to address the problem.

She therefore, appealed to the government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to institute a mapping out study on the number of stateless persons in the country to prepare the grounds for government's efforts to accede to the United Nations' Conventions on Statelessness by 2016.

Ms Abbey made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Abidjan on the sideline of the first ever Ministerial Conference on Statelessness in West Africa.

Statelessness is a situation whereby an individual residing in a state is denied all the privileges and rights 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.

Ms Abbey further described the ministerial conference as a step in the right direction.

She said statelessness renders persons at risk and makes them invisible to the mechanism of states and that it was therefore, important that there was a data in place for such persons so that they could be monitored and attended.

She said the Centre was ever ready to support government and the UNHCR in conducting a mapping out study on stateless persons in Ghana.

Ms Abbey lauded the government for pledging to accede to the UN Conventions on statelessness by 2016.

HRAC is a not-for-profit, independent, non-partisan, research and advocacy organization set up to advance and protect human rights in Ghana. Established in 2008, the HRAC is an organisation situated in the Greater Accra region that operates across Ghana.

GNA