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The World Council of Churches (WCC) coordinated an ecumenical delegation that attended the World Conference on Statelessness and Inclusion held 26-28 June at The Hague.

An international ecumenical consultation held in Chiang Mai, Thailand from 20-23 May, gave serious attention to the plight of stateless and trafficked people, and how to better preserve their human rights. The consultation, organized by the Christian Conference of Asia and the World Council of Churches, drew participants from various parts of Asia.

A delegation from the World Council of Churches (WCC) including representatives from Malaysia and Jordan as well as the Director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) visited The Bahamas from 13-17 November 2018 to consult with church leaders, to participate in a workshop coordinated by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“I didn’t have any document that says who I am, so I started to look for answers that would help me to understand the real definition of my condition as a stateless person”, said Maha Mamo in a video interview published by World Council of Churches communications.

Shortly after a two-and-a-half-day fact-finding mission to the Dominican Republic, World Council of Churches (WCC) communications spoke with Sophia Wirsching, policy adviser on migration and development at Bread for the World, the German Protestant development service.

A regional training workshop, “Statelessness in the Caribbean Context: Prevention, Reduction and Protection,” was held from 6-9 May in Willemstad, Curacao.

An “Interfaith Symposium on Statelessness” held 7-8 December in Rome focused, for the first time in history, on joint actions from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Jewish groups to address statelessness.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, revealed in October that at the end of 2016 the number of people displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution was a record 65.6 million, with 22.5 million of them refugees.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) on 14 September expressed its concern over the worsening situation of the Rohingya people in Myanmar.

A regional conference held 5-6 September in Berlin allowed participants to look at statelessness in the European context through the lenses of human rights and development.

The conference, with the theme “Statelessness in the European Context: Prevention, Reduction and Protection,” approached statelessness as an issue that is often invisible even though it occurs in so many countries around the world.

The 54th meeting of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) began today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, marking its yearly regional focus on Africa. During the meeting CCIA members are discussing the commission’s previous work and its outcomes focusing on Middle East, as well as setting strategic directions for activities until 2021.

The experience of his father’s fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 and then living alien and stateless in Sweden provides biblical theologian Hans Ucko with the touchstone of his writing about stateless persons.

Christians awaiting the advent of the Lord and the reign of God are invited in this season and in light of the scriptures to assay our lives and lifestyles, to identify with the vulnerable and marginalized among us, and to search anew for ways to incarnate the reign of God and the teaching of Jesus in our personal relationships and social structures.

Statelessness robs individuals of their identity and their most fundamental human rights, acknowledged a webinar on Global Action Plan to End Statelessness on 4 November, organized by the WCC to assess the work achieved since the launch of the UNHCR's #IBelong Campaign to end statelessness.

Progress and current challenges in eliminating global statelessness were discussed during a public event at the UNHCR’s headquarters in Geneva on 27 October, marking the second anniversary of the global #IBelong campaign.

Some people don’t exist – on paper, that is. Indeed, millions of people are not recognized as citizens by the law of any country.

“Statelessness renders people’s vulnerability to abuse and to denial of their rights invisible to national authorities. In this sense the right to a nationality is a threshold issue for access to protection of all other human rights - almost a 'right to have rights'”, said Peter Prove, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), following a regional training workshop on birth registration and gender discriminatory nationality laws in Africa, organized by the WCC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11–13 May.

The average person in Europe may be having more difficulty coming to terms with the reality of migrants and refugees than ever before, said Maria Mountraki, given how close to home — literally — the influx of people has become.

Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance negate the essence of human beings by negating their origins and identities. This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa.

Reduction in and prevention of statelessness, and the protection of stateless people in the Middle East provided the focus of a workshop organized by the WCC and the Middle East Council of Churches in Beirut, Lebanon.