3rd Anniversary Of #IBelong Campaign To Be Marked

The United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) will this week mark the third anniversary of the '#IBelong' Campaign to End Statelessness.

A statement issued by the UNHCR Office in Accra and copied to the Ghana News Agency said: 'To coincide with the anniversary, this week UNHCR is launching a new report, -'This is Our Home': Stateless Minorities and their Search for Citizenship - an important publication, as 75 per cent of known stateless populations belong to minority groups.'

It said the report noted that discrimination based on difference was often an underlying cause of statelessness - with heart-breaking consequences.

The statement said the UNHCR was encouraged by the progress made through the campaign.

It said a number of States have made notable strides in resolving protracted statelessness situations and some have made changes to their nationality laws to help prevent statelessness.

It said there has been a remarkable 15 new accessions to the statelessness conventions since beginning of the campaign.

The statement said many of the States who had successfully had done so were in the West Africa sub-region.

'On this occasion of the third anniversary, UNHCR urges the Government of Ghana to adopt its 2016 National Action Plan in line with the Banjul Plan of Action of May 2017 to end statelessness in Ghana,' it said.

'And to take steps to become a State party to the UN statelessness conventions in fulfillment of its long standing pledge. Stateless persons are our neighbours, our friends and our acquaintances. Let's fight against statelessness,' it added.