Stateless persons
Stateless persons
Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defines a stateless person as ‘a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law'.The international community has long recognized that every individual, no matter where in the world the person finds himself or herself, should hold a legal bond of nationality to a State. Yet, there are today an estimated 15 million stateless people worldwide living on the margins of society deprived of many of their most basic human rights and personal freedoms.
Stateless family in Armenia © UNHCR/Bagrat Grigoryan
Currently, there are 373 stateless persons in Armenia. In the frame of the #IBelong campaign, UNHCR advocates for improvement of statelessness-related legislation and practices, and promotes systematic data collection on the stateless population. UNHCR also supports the Government with the development of a fair, effective and efficient Statelessness Determination Procedure; advocates for universally accessible and simplified documentation procedures and facilitation of naturalization of stateless persons.
For more information on the causes of statelessness and treatment of stateless persons in Armenia, please read Questions of Nationality and Statelessness in Armenia analysis produced by UNHCR in 2013.