I very much welcomed the opportunity to speak at the recent European Network on Statelessness (ENS) conference in Budapest on 4-5 May which launched their new report ‘Protecting Stateless Persons from Arbitrary Detention – An Agenda for Change’ and related #LockedInLimbo campaign...

This is blog is a repost of the foreword to the newly published report “Protecting stateless persons from arbitrary detention: An Agenda for Change”. The full report is available online [pdf].

Studies estimate that surrogate mothers have given birth to more than 25,000 children in India, and about half of these children now live in the West. There were 3000-6000 cases of commercial surrogacy births in India alone in the last decade, fuelled by medical tourism in India which is worth around $6 billion and 450,000 tourists a year. Many children born of commercial surrogacy, particularly when the commissioning parents are foreigners, have  ended up stateless or have battled years to establish their nationalities.

In its latest Mid-Year Trends 2016 UNHCR estimates at least 10 million people to be stateless globally. Approximately one-third of them are children. UNHCR also currently reports over 700,000 stateless persons in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) area of 57 Participating States (pS), including those belonging to Roma and Sinti minorities.