Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Adventurer]

HIDDEN in the back corners of the world is a scattered population of millions of nobodies, citizens of nowhere, forgotten or neglected by governments, ignored by census takers.

Many of these stateless people are among the world�s poorest; all are the most disenfranchised. Without citizenship, they often have no right to schooling, health care or property ownership. Nor may they vote or travel outside their countries � even, in some cases, outside the towns where they live.

They are stateless for many reasons � migration, refugee flight, racial or ethnic exclusion, the quirks of history � but taken together, these noncitizens, according to one report, �are among the most vulnerable segments of humanity.�
HIDDEN in the back corners of the world is a scattered population of millions of nobodies, citizens of nowhere, forgotten or neglected by governments, ignored by census takers.

Many of these stateless people are among the world�s poorest; all are the most disenfranchised. Without citizenship, they often have no right to schooling, health care or property ownership. Nor may they vote or travel outside their countries � even, in some cases, outside the towns where they live.

They are stateless for many reasons � migration, refugee flight, racial or ethnic exclusion, the quirks of history � but taken together, these noncitizens, according to one report, �are among the most vulnerable segments of humanity.�
HIDDEN in the back corners of the world is a scattered population of millions of nobodies, citizens of nowhere, forgotten or neglected by governments, ignored by census takers.

Many of these stateless people are among the world�s poorest; all are the most disenfranchised. Without citizenship, they often have no right to schooling, health care or property ownership. Nor may they vote or travel outside their countries � even, in some cases, outside the towns where they live.

They are stateless for many reasons � migration, refugee flight, racial or ethnic exclusion, the quirks of history � but taken together, these noncitizens, according to one report, �are among the most vulnerable segments of humanity.�

By the most common count, there are 15 million stateless people in the world, but by its nature, this is a number nobody can know for certain.

The stateless include some 200,000 Urdu-speaking Bihari in scores of refugee settlements in Bangladesh. Also, there are members of the Rohingya, an oppressed Muslim ethnic minority from western Myanmar. More than 100,000 have fled in recent decades to Bangladesh, where they live in camps or on the streets.

They also include tens of thousands of Filipino and Indonesian children in the Malaysian state of Sabah, victims of laws that, in effect, deny them birth certificates.

In Thailand, the government has embarked on an unusual and ambitious program to determine the citizenship rights of its stateless people, checking documents and interviewing witnesses and local elders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/weekinreview/08mydans.html?ex=1333684800&en=4042abf7c8d6a88d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss