By Tim Large | Thu., August 4, 11:15 AM | Comments ( 6 )
Formerly stateless Bihari Muslim children celebrate their new status as Bangladeshi citizens at a refugee camp at Mirpur in Dhaka. REUTERS/Rafiquar Rahman
Child Marriage: Denying girls’ rights, perpetuating poverty is the latest in a series of multimedia special reports featuring videos, info-graphics and articles by Thomson Reuters Foundation, which runs the AlertNet humanitarian news website, the TrustLaw legal news service and TrustMedia journalism training programme.
Our next package, out in late August, will be on the issue of statelessness – a legal limbo that affects some 15 million people worldwide who lack any nationality, denying them basic rights and protections.
There are many reasons why a person might be stateless. Sometimes, it has to do with the dissolution of a state, as in parts of the former Soviet Union or the partition of East and West Pakistan. Sometimes it has to do with technical reasons -- such as when people fall between gaps in conflicting nationality laws.
“Stateless people face numerous difficulties in their lives: They can lack access to health care, education, property rights and the ability to move freely,” says U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.
“They are also vulnerable to arbitrary treatment and crimes like trafficking. Their marginalization can create tensions in society and lead to instability at an international level, including, in extreme cases, conflict and displacement.”
Thomson Reuters Foundation’s multimedia package on statelessness is timed to mark the 50th anniversary, on Aug. 30, of a landmark convention on reduction of statelessness. Rights campaigners say much remains to be done. Only 38 countries are party to the convention, which offers solutions to nationality problems for stateless people in their territory.
We invite contributions from aid agencies, journalists, photographers, cinematographers, multimedia editors and stateless people themselves for our special coverage of the issue. We would welcome your photo essays (via Flickr), videos (via Vimeo or YouTube) or text stories (via email).
We are particularly interested in material on the following groups of stateless people:
- The Bidoons in Kuwait
- Stateless people in Nepal
- The Bihari in Bangladesh
- Hill Tamils in Sri Lanka
- The Roma in Europe
- Stateless Kurds
- Stateless people in Ivory Coast
- Stateless people in Brazil
- Nubians in Kenya
- The Rohingyas in Southeast Asia
- Stateless children in Sabah, Malaysia
How to contribute
The deadline for contributions is Aug. 15. Please send your links to a Flickr page or Vimeo or Youtube videos in a short email to foundation@thomsonreuters.com with STATELESSNESS in the subject line. You can also send text contributions to that address. If your visual content isn’t yet online, please send a sample of five of your strongest images.
In your email, please include the following:
- Author of the reportage
- Dates of shooting
- Exact location
- A short description of your project
- A brief profile of yourself
The best contributions will be published in late August. Please note that we will not be able to pay for contributions. By submitting content you are agreeing that it may be used without payment for editorial purposes on Thomson Reuters Foundation websites.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
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