Activities of Cristian Dan PREDA related to 2016/2220(INI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on statelessness in South and South East Asia PDF (396 KB) DOC (77 KB)
Amendments (30)
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that all individuals are born equal in dignity and rights; whereas the right to a nationality and the right not to be arbitrarily deprived from one’s nationality is enshrined in Article 15 of the same Declaration, as well as in other international human rights instruments and conventions;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A b (new)
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by all South and Southeast Asia countries, stipulates that a child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right to acquire a nationality; whereas it is estimated that half of the world’s stateless persons are children and that many of them are stateless from birth;
Amendment 18 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas a stateless person is defined in the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Person as someone ‘who is not considered as a national of any State under operation of its law’; whereas the root causes of statelessness can varyare diverse, including but not limited to being forced to flee, migrstate succession, dissolution of states, violent conflict, discriminatory policy toward a targeted group of persons, gender discrimination, changes and gaps in nationality laws, expiration of nationality throughfor having lived outside of one’s country for an extended period of time, gender discrimination, administrative and bureaucratic hurdles;
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas statelessness is a multifaceted problem, including but and the root cause of serious human rights violations that include but are not limited to problems relating to birth certificates and other civil status documents, as well as other documents relating to property, educational achievement and business ownership, political representation and voting participation, access to social security and public services; whereas statelessness may contribute to human trafficking, and child abuse; rbitrary detention, violation of the freedom of movement, child abuse and discrimination against women;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas statelessness continues to receive limited international attention despite its very worrying global and regional human rights implications and continues to be seen as an internal affair of states; whereas reducing and eventually abolishing statelessness should become a human rights priority at the international level;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
Db. whereas the international legal instruments to fight statelessness have not achieved their primary objective of protecting the right of every person to a nationality;
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas The Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: 2014 – 2024 of the UNHCR aims to resolve existing major situations of statelessness, prevent new cases of emerging and better identify and protect stateless populations; whereas the EU committed to actively support the UNHCR Action’s Plan to end statelessness;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
J. whereas many of the world’s 10 million stateless persons reside in South and Southeast Asia, with the Rohingya of Myanmar being the single largest stateless group in the world, with over 800 0001 million persons under the UNHCR’s statelessness mandate, but large communities of stateless people are also found in Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei and elsewhere; whereas South and Southeast Asia have both protracted and unresolved cases, as well as cases where effective progress has been made, at least on paper;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K
Recital K
K. whereas significant progress has been made in South and Southeast Asia in recent years with amendments to nationality laws introducing adequate provisions to prevent statelessness and to allow stateless persons to acquire nationality; whereas these efforts need to be pursued and reinforced;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital L
Recital L
L. whereas the Rohingya are one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, and have been officially stateless since the 1982 Burmese Citizenship Law; whereas the Rohingya are unwanted by the Myanmar authorities and by neighbouring countries, although some of the latter host large refugee populations; whereas ongoing clashes in Rakhine State are causing continued human trafficking; whereas domestic and international responses to the situation of the Rohingya have been largely insufficient and many tools to resolve the issue have not been yet explored;
Amendment 76 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Regrets that statelessness status is in some cases instrumentalised in order to marginalise specific communities and deprive them of their rights; believes that legal, political and social inclusion of minorities is a key element of a democratic transition and that resolving statelessness issues would contribute to a better social cohesion and political stability;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 b (new)
Paragraph 1 b (new)
1b. Draws attention to the fact that statelessness can cause significant humanitarian crisis and reminds that statelessness persons should have access to humanitarian programmes; underlines that statelessness often implies lack of access to education, health services, work, freedom of movement and security;
Amendment 86 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Whilst acknowledging national sovereignty over matters such as citizenship, urges countries with stateless populations to take concrete steps towards resolving this issue, in line with the principles enshrined in international conventions and in particular the Convention on the rights of the child that they have all ratified;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Calls on the EU to promote the setting-up of global solutions to statelessness together with specific regional or local strategies since a "one size fits all" approach will not be efficient enough to tackle statelessness;
Amendment 95 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Believes that the EU should more strongly underline the major impact of statelessness on global issues such as poverty eradication, the implementation of the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs, the promotion of the rights of the child, addressing illegal migration and human trafficking;
Amendment 96 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 c (new)
Paragraph 3 c (new)
3c. Emphasises the importance of an effective communication strategy on statelessness in order to raise awareness on the issue; calls on the EU to communicate more and better on statelessness, in cooperation with UNHCR, and through its delegations in the third countries concerned, and focus on the human rights violations as a consequence of statelessness;
Amendment 97 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 d (new)
Paragraph 3 d (new)
3d. Calls for the EU to develop a comprehensive strategy to statelessness based on two sets of measures; considers that the first set should deal with urgent situations and the second one should define long-term measures to end statelessness; believes that the strategy should focus on a limited number of priorities and that the EU should take the lead in case of urgent situations to raise the awareness on statelessness at the international level;
Amendment 98 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 e (new)
Paragraph 3 e (new)
3e. Stresses that the EU’s comprehensive strategy on statelessness should be able to adjust to specific situations faced by stateless people; stresses that in order to define appropriate measures, a distinction needs to be made between a statelessness as a result of a lack of administrative capacity and as a result of a discriminatory state policy against certain communities or minorities;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – introductory part
Paragraph 4 – introductory part
4. Recommends that in the Member States make it a priority to support the positive developments iframework of the comprehensive strategy on statelessness, the EU focuses on the following priority areas when addressing the statelessness issue in South and Southeast Asia, and proposes a new comprehensive policy approach including:
Amendment 101 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 1
Paragraph 4 – indent 1
– encouraging relevant ministries and parliaments to highlight the benefits of acceding to the Statelessness Conventcoordinated solutions to statelessness among South and Southeast Asia countries to develop efficient strategies with measurable goals; in this respect, ASEAN could play an important role in coordinating these efforts and aiming towards its objectives of promoting and protecting human rights within the regions;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 3
Paragraph 4 – indent 3
– advocating with states on the benefits of gathering national data on stateless persons and those with undetermined nationality for purposes ofas the identification of stateless persons is the first step for the states concerned to take the necessary measures to end statelessness; the data collected will then be used for registration, documentation, delivery of public services, maintenance of law and order and development planning;
Amendment 109 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 4
Paragraph 4 – indent 4
– consistently emphasising that birth registration needs to be free, easily accessible and undertaken on a non- discriminatory basis;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 – indent 4 a (new)
– supporting South and Southeast Asia countries to ensure access to education to everyone including stateless children, as statelessness is a significant obstacle for children to get access to equal education opportunities;
Amendment 120 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 7
Paragraph 4 – indent 7
– building the capacity of relevant EU institutions and actors to understand, assess and programme and report on issues of statelessness; putting in place a regular reporting on the EU’s achievements in the fight against statelessness including by integrating a section on statelessness in the EU's Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the world;
Amendment 123 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 8
Paragraph 4 – indent 8
– ensuring that statelessness, nationality and citizenship are appropriately covered in human rights and democracy country strategies; addressing the issue of statelessness during every political and human rights dialogue with the countries concerned;
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 8 a (new)
Paragraph 4 – indent 8 a (new)
– setting-up EU Human Rights guidelines on statelessness in order to provide concrete measurable objectives for EU's efforts to eliminate statelessness worldwide;
Amendment 129 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 10
Paragraph 4 – indent 10
– reserving funding in the Development Cooperation Instrument, European Development Fund and the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights budgets for NGOs and other organisations working to reach stateless communities; promoting partnerships between civil society organisations and statelessness communities in order to empower them so they can fight for their rights;
Amendment 133 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 – indent 11
Paragraph 4 – indent 11
– ensuring follow-up, such as awareness raising and technical support for public administrations and capacity building, including at local level for when there have been positive developments that need to be implemented in practice, such as in Bangladesh, where the Biharis have been granted the right to citizenship and voting rights; supporting South and Southeast Asia countries in the promotion and exchange of best practices in implementing international standards related to the fight against statelessness;
Amendment 137 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6