Press Release
UNHCR Holds Seminar on Statelessness for Parliamentarians
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, August 14, 2013 - In partnership with Citizen Action for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT) and the Support Group for Returnees and Refugees (GARR), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) organized a seminar on statelessness for Haitian parliamentarians earlier this month at the Caribe Convention Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
In addition to sensitizing parliamentarians on the risks of statelessness in Haiti and its impact on people of Haitian descent living abroad, who are potentially affected, the seminar aimed at highlighting issues related to prevention and reduction of statelessness, particularly through the ratification of the two international conventions on statelessness, the necessary reform of the civil registration system to ensure the registration of all births, and the reform of the nationality law.
"The Parliament can only commit to fight statelessness by performing the function assigned to it by the Constitution to make laws to protect the rights of stateless including children, prevention and reduction of statelessness,” said Honourable Simon Dieusel Desras, President of the National Assembly, who opened the conference. Deputies, Senators and senior officials of the parliament also took part to the discussion.
“Haiti made the commitment to ratify the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness during a Ministerial Conference organized by UNHCR in Geneva in December 2011 and reiterated this commitment at the meeting on the rule of law, which was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2012,” said Soufiane Adjali, head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Haiti, in his remarks.
Currently, 12 million people are estimated to be stateless worldwide. The 1954 and 1961 Conventions are the key legal instruments in the protection of stateless people around the world and in the prevention and reduction of statelessness. While they are complemented by regional treaty standards and international human rights law, the two statelessness conventions are the only global conventions of their kind as they provide a holistic response to the full range of problems that statelessness brings.
UNHCR, Haiti
Media Contact:
Jean François Calvaire
Advocacy and Communications Assistant
UNHCR Haïti
calvaire@unhcr.org(link sends e-mail)---haipo@unhcr.org(link sends e-mail)
(+509)4890-2665
