Including Rohingya refugees currently residing in Bangladesh, southeast Asia is home to over half of the world’s stateless persons. Within southeast Asia, Myanmar has the largest identified combined residual caseload of stateless persons residing in country—including stateless IDPs—along with stateless persons with Myanmar as their place of former habitual residence. An extremely diverse population makes up Myanmar society. However, current laws and policies limit automatic conferral of citizenship at birth to children born to parents from 135 sub-ethnicities recognized by the State as Taing-Yin-Tha (i.e. indigenous races). Various minority groups are not included within the list of recognized ethnicities. The Rohingya represent the most internationally well-known such group at this time; however, people of Nepali, Indian and Chinese descent, Pashu and Moken, and various other groups long residing in Myanmar also are not included within the recognized ethnicities. Some 27% per cent of non-Rohingya people in Myanmar lack civil documentation according to the 2014 census. People belonging to non-recognized ethnicities may, in some cases, acquire Myanmar citizenship through legal pathways, but face additional administrative procedures as compared to recognized ethnicities. They also report facing high levels of formal and informal barriers to access citizenship as well as long delays in their application due to discriminatory attitudes. In 2019, UNHCR marked the halfway point of the #IBelong Campaign aims to end statelessness within ten years. Improving qualitative and quantitative data on stateless populations represents one of the core actions of the campaign. In 2021, UNHCR will continue to collect qualitative data through partnerships with national NGOs, CSOs and other networks and stakeholders to understand the challenges faced by diverse communities including ethnic and religious minorities when trying to obtain citizenship documentation. These efforts will continue to build on mapping exercises begun in 2016. UNHCR will also continue to support partners providing support to persons applying for civil documentation. Lack of documentation in and of itself does mean a person is stateless; however, lacking documentation put people—and especially their children—at risk of statelessness.
Comprehensive Response: The provision 1982 Citizenship Law by definition place a higher risk of statelessness on ethnic minorities not included within the 135 recognized sub-ethnicities of Taing-Yin-Tha. People belonging to ethnic groups may disproportionately reside in areas with limited access due to presence of non-State armed actors. Lack of resources and lack of access will likely make comprehensive nation-wide mapping impracticable through 2021.
Prioritised Response: UNHCR will continue to collect qualitative data through partnerships with national NGOs, CSOs and other networks and stakeholders to understand the challenges faced by diverse communities including ethnic and religious minorities when trying to obtain citizenship documentation. Partners will provide support to people applying for civil documentation. UNHCR will continue to expand geographic coverage as operational context allows.