UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomes the adoption by Paraguay of a new law that helps to identify, protect and solve the situation of stateless people (persons who are not considered as nationals by any State).
Last Thursday (9 August), Paraguay’s bicameral Congress approved a bill presented in May 2017, which protects the rights of stateless people, as well as applicants for the recognition of such status, and a facilitated path to naturalization.
The new law assigns the National Commission for Refugees (CONARE) the responsibility for the determination of statelessness and helps ensure that the children of Paraguayan nationals born in a foreign country, who would otherwise be stateless, acquire Paraguayan nationality without having to settle in the country.
This law constitutes an important milestone for the region, which is working to eradicate statelessness within ten years as part of the commitments by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to the 2014 Brazil Plan of Action.
In November 2014, UNHCR launched the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness before 2024, giving greater visibility to the specific problems that statelessness causes to women, men, boys and girls. The Campaign also seeks to strengthen the response of governments and civil society. Stateless people are often deprived of basic rights such as going to school, seeing a doctor, finding a job, opening a bank account, traveling or getting married.
Original source: UNHCR
Published on 14 August 2018
