Making Stateless People Visible and Powerful

Up to 15 million people worldwide are stateless, including an estimated half a million in Europe. To learn more, we caught up with Christiana Bukalo in Munich — who founded and leads Statefree, a human rights organization and global community organizing to make stateless people visible and valued. Here, she talks to Berlin-based entrepreneur Sascha Haselmayer.

Sascha Haselmayer: Christiana, let’s start with a basic question for the uninitiated. What is statelessness? Who is a stateless person?

Christiana Bukalo: Many people have this question, so thanks for asking upfront. Stateless people are not recognized as citizens by any nation. As with citizenship, statelessness is not about whether or not you feel like you belong in a certain country or culture. It’s a one-way street. States decide who is a citizen and confer rights accordingly.

Haselmayer: How does this play out for people?

Bukalo: If you are like most people and you have citizenship, you will notice that many of your rights are linked to, and protected by, your country. For stateless people, depending on where you live, you might not be able to go to school, you might not be able to work or access health services or travel. And while you are 100% impacted by the decisions that are being made in politics, you don’t have the right to vote and have zero opportunity to influence what is happening on the political level.

Haselmayer: Where primarily do stateless people live?

Bukalo: We are everywhere, across all countries, although not all countries know or report numbers. One of the largest groups is Rohingya in Myanmar, excluded from nationality since 1982. Another large group is Palestinians — a state needs to be recognized as a state in order to give citizenship to individuals. And in Europe, currently an estimated half a million people are stateless, with 126,000 of us living here in Germany.

Haselmayer: You are not actually a human rights lawyer — your expertise comes directly from your personal experience. Tell us more.

Bukalo: This is true! I was born stateless in Germany thirty years ago — my parents had come to Germany from West Africa two years earlier. So, I grew up speaking German, went to university, and started a successful career. But four years ago, something happened that was a harsh reality check. Planning to travel to Morocco, I had applied for and received a valid travel document from the German government — not a passport, naturally, because I am not recognized as a citizen. Yet when I arrived at Marrakech airport, I was told I could not enter Morocco and must return to Germany on the next flight. Can you imagine? In this moment I realized how little freedom I actually had — and that my younger sisters, and likely many others in our situation, would be similarly constrained.

Haselmayer: This led to your setting up Statefree. How did this unfold and what is the community’s focus now?

Bukalo: After Morocco, I started looking into global datasets, saw the scope of the issue, and committed to doing something. Statefree now has three main pillars. The first is about community. Being stateless can be very isolating, making it important for us to come together as a community and shape our own narratives. Oftentimes what is being internalized is, I’m stateless, I don’t exist and I’m invisible — these are negative self-narratives. So, as a community, we focus on transforming the way stateless people think about themselves so that they — we — can change the way the world thinks about us. Visibility is also key; it’s the second pillar. It’s important that our community and also the broader public learns what statelessness means and sees that there are many of us. The third focus is equal rights. We understood early on that you can create as much community and visibility as you like but true freedom comes with access to basic rights.

Haselmayer: Does a pathway to equal rights look the same for everyone?

Bukalo: In general terms, yes, but it’s also important to understand that there are a lot of different reasons for statelessness and a lot of different biographies. There are people who, like me, are born stateless because statelessness can be inherited. Then there are people who become stateless due to war or political conflicts — we see people from, say, the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, Palestine. Discriminatory nationality laws account for another group — over 25 countries don’t allow women to pass nationality to their children. So, for example, if an Iranian woman gives birth to a child in Germany, and the Iranian father doesn’t legally recognize the child, then the child ends up being stateless.

Haselmayer: How does Statesfree support a broad range of circumstances? What does full participation look like in your community?

Bukalo: Well, some members approach us because they need immediate help — legal help, for example — and can’t find any other support. We’ve even had cases where parliamentarians or the local elected officials send people with various questions our way. Then there’s a second group that wants to start speaking up about their statelessness, since there’s so little knowledge about statelessness in the public sphere. We support as far as we can, and encourage them to ask other community members how they might solve the issues. Importantly, we help people see that, okay, this is something that doesn’t just affect me, it’s not my fault — it’s a structural issue.

Haselmayer: Requiring a structural solution, which means getting into new laws and participation in politics.

Bukalo: Yes. When we started our political advocacy, we obviously wanted our community members to be part of the political work but no one raised their hand. And I understand this — because there’s a complete lack of trust in the system, right? So we started in a different way, creating a first project together, a podcast series. Now, one year into this project, there’s more trust when it comes to political work. At the same time, the journey around Germany’s Citizenship Act started and gradually our members wanted to co-create proposals. We organized what we called a Statefree dinner where parliamentarians got to meet our members and had the opportunity to learn about needs, opportunities, and why it’s important to make statelessness more visible in our legal structures.

Haselmayer: Updating the law — this is often a long road. With the new citizenship law, just passed, where do things stand for stateless people in Germany?

Bukalo: Despite our dedicated efforts, statelessness was not incorporated into the new citizenship law. However, our persistent advocacy did yield a small compromise — a motion for a resolution that acknowledges statelessness, a first step, with further action to be taken by the Ministry of the Interior. Although this falls short of the outcome we were aiming for, we celebrate this achievement — and it highlights the work that is still needed to advance true accountability and comprehensive legal recognition for stateless individuals.

Haselmayer: Christiana, what do you hope changes in the coming years?

Bukalo: You know, citizenship per se, it’s not bad or good — right? But the way we use it is something that should be challenged. States need to protect their most vulnerable members — yet we exclude stateless people, push them away. I want to see stateless people recognized as full people with rights and freedoms, including the freedom to contribute to a better future for all.

Christiana Bukalo and Sascha Haselmayer are Ashoka Fellows. This interview is condensed for length and clarity.

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