“How is it possible that I’m here and yet I cannot exist?”

There are stateless people all over the world. Their exact number is not known because data on stateless persons is rarely collected. Due to the high number of unreported cases, experts* assume that there are at least 10 million people without citizenship.

Exclusive state legal systems as well as flight and migration lead to people losing their citizenship or not getting it at all from birth. People’s fates differ, but the consequences are the same for everyone:

These people are denied the most obvious things: education, medical care, security, the right to property, opportunities to work, to pass on their nationality to their children, to vote or simply to travel. These universal rights are due to everyone – they cannot be tied to a nationality.