Sri Lanka has no stateless people

By Shanika Sriyananda

Stateless people! They are living from Asia to Africa to Middle East to Europe with no rights and a nationality. Often they – from newborn babies to older people – are excluded from cradle to grave as they are denied a legal identity when they are born. Being stateless people they have no legal identity to access to education, healthcare, marriage and job opportunities and also they breathe their last with no dignity of an official burial and a death certificate.

An accurate number of stateless people remains unknown, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there would be over 10 million stateless people around the world and one third of them are children. 

At a recent forum organised by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies and the UNHCR, the Secretary of the Ministry of Hill Country New Villages, Infrastructure and Community Development Ranjini Nadarajapillai said that Sri Lanka no longer had stateless people as over 1.2 million Tamils of Indian origin had been granted citizenship.

Giving an account on the history of the Indian Tamils later known as Upcountry Tamils or Hill country Tamils, who were brought to Sri Lanka, between 1820 to 1840 to work, first in coffee plantations and later in tea plantations, by the British rulers, she said that although they were citizens of Sri Lanka they still face many difficulties compared to other communities in the country.

Nadarajapillai also explained about the Acts brought in from time to time to with regard to the citizenship issues of the Upcountry Tamils. 

“According to reports there are nearly 1.2 million people are living in 453 estates, which belong to the state and the private sector, which are cultivating tea, rubber, coconut, palm oil, etc. in 162,759 hectares of land. There are 145,507 worker families and 97,500 non-worker families in the sector. They contribute to 2.8 of the country’s total GDP and 15% of the total export earnings,” she noted.

Plantation sector 

not yet under Govt. admin system

Spelling out the challenges that the upcountry Tamils are facing, she said that the main issue was they were not in the government administration structure and were denied of the facilities and rights that the other people enjoy in other parts of the country. 

“Poor living conditions with no proper houses, they are the landless people of Sri Lanka, who are living in poverty-stricken districts. They are also vulnerable to natural disasters like landslides and floods but these who were caught up in the recent natural calamities were not compensated as they are still coming under the estate administration,” she said citing labour migration, poor health facilities, unemployment and poor education facilities as other main issues that need to redress.

She said under the new Government came into power in 2015 the new Ministry – Hill Country New Villages, Infrastructure and Community Development – was formed with a broader mandate to promote the wellbeing of the plantation community by improving the living conditions and their socio economic facilities and also to ensure the social status.

The Ministry, according to Nadarajapillai, has prepared a 10-year National Plan of Action by a team of experts, who studied the issues in the plantation sector. Under the new Action Plan, it will look into improve the housing conditions, providing water and sanitation, improve community infrastructure, enhance health and nutrition conditions, education, skills and vocational training for the plantation youth and also empowering the community.

“When compared with all other social indicators they are far behind. Living standards of this pocket of people is not par with other communities in the country. All estate schools are now fully undertaken by the Government but due to difficulties in accessing to secondary schools which are far from their housing settlements school dropout rates after Ordinary Level examination is high. But now it is improving as we encourage them to attend schools,” she said.

No more century-old line rooms 

One mandate of the Ministry is to replace centuries-old small line-rooms with new houses, which has a requirement of over 162,000 houses. A family will get a seven perches land with a house and a clear title deed.

“This is the first time in the history they are going to own the land. Out of 162,000 houses we have to build 50,000 within five years. We are going to complete 20,000 houses next year. Indian Government has granted 14,000 houses and 4,000 houses are in completion,” she noted.

Another issue that has been taken into consideration is to provide vocational training to the estate youth to stop migration of unskilled labourers to Colombo and other major cities for low wages. According to statistics, between 300 to 500 school drop-outs from the plantation sector ended up as unskilled labourers in every year. The Indian Government-funded vocational training centre, where the Indian lecturers giving vocational training to grant them technical qualification will be set up soon.

Explaining the importance of improving the health facilities in the plantation sector, Nadarajapillai said that only a few hospitals had been amalgamated into the Government system and still the majority remains under the estate management system.

“No qualified doctors, nurses, mid-wives and other hospital staffers in these estate hospitals but they are run by the estate managers. The Cabinet has appointed a special Select Committee to look into the health problems and we are planning to take over all the hospitals in the estates under the Government system to provide proper healthcare facilities. All the citizens in Sri Lanka has access to free healthcare but in estates they are denied of those facilities,” she pointed out.

However, she said that the ministry was intended to provide them those facilities to empower them to be par with the other communities to make word statelessness meaningful to them.

Ending statelessness within 10 years – UNHCR

Provide an international perspective to the situation of statelessness with regard to the global community and the challenges facing the stateless communities, the Officer-in-Charge of the UNHCR Igor Ivancic said Sri Lanka was a good example of how the legislative change and political will can resolve a long-standing situation of statelessness in a short time.

“Nearly 10 years ago, the UNHCR team up with the Government at a time to change the legislation in Sri Lanka to grant Sri Lankan nationality to group of stateless people,” he said.

The Refugee Convention was welcomed by more countries but the issue of Statelessness, which was also started in 1954s same as the Refugee Convention had a relatively slow progress.

“The UNHCR’s second mandate is to respond to the issue of statelessness. That improved the directions of protection, International Corporation with states and international organisations, providing technical assistance and support. These are the elements that we work with regard to statelessness. In addition to the two Conventions, there is a body of other international instruments which will look into the issue nationality, issue of every child should be registered at birth, convention of rights of the child, Convention on issue of racial discrimination, international Convention on civil and political rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They all together form the body of laws based on which all government services international agencies, practitioners are building policies to statelessness people,” he explained. 

Ivancic said that in 2014 the UNHCR had started the Global Campaign to address the issues of statelessness for a period of 10 years which has a Global Action Plan with 10 actions to eradicate statelessness. 

“We want to encourage individuals to sign up a letter to get the support around the world to spread the simple message that ‘no one in today’s world should be leave without a state’,” he said.

Disclosing the progress made he said that during the last three to four years the UNHCR has registered four million people whom the nationality has confirmed from the category of statelessness. 

“In more than 20 countries, there is gender discriminatory elements in their legislation where mothers who can’t transfer their nationality of their children in the absence of their fathers. Out of them, 12 States have indicated that they will revive their legislation. We are seeing today in our region probably one of the largest refugee crisis with crisis of stateless people especially Rohingya people from Myanmar and Bangladesh,” he said, adding that there is still a way to go and hopefully this can be overcome with corporation and international solidarity.

He pointed out that a there were few hundred thousand of people who were actually are in a situation of statelessness in Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines and they are moving forward like Sri Lanka by registering their people to grant their citizenships. 

“These three countries looking at legislative changes and people are already receiving their birth certificates to become fully pledged citizens of those countries,” he noted.

SL plantation 

not demanding 

Speaking about ‘Incomplete Integration in Governance: The case of Plantation Community in Sri Lanka’, Dr. R. Ramesh Department of Political Science, University of Peradeniya, spoke about , Sri Lanka institutional factor is very much important in providing services for the minorities or the marginalised communities in a country. 

“Several studies in the Europe show that without improving the quality of the governance, public institutions, offices, it is less likely to improve access to Government services for minorities or marginalised communities. Another factor is that it is also depend on demand and supply factor. The plantation people are not demanding for public services as equal citizens of this country. Because of discrimination, they have not developed social attitudes, capabilities, skills or to demand against discrimination or fight against unfair treatment,” he emphasised.

He claimed that in the plantation sector, the public servants, who were close to politicians, overlook the grievances of the people, especially they were being excluded in the government welfare schemes like Samurdhi and other poverty alleviation programs.

“Because of this behaviour these people are not get selected for these social security schemes for elders, pregnant mothers. They are being discriminated as the public servants are serving more to the ethnic majority,” he pointed out.

Dr. Ramesh said that only 38.2% of the plantation Tamils was satisfied with the performance of democracy and about 90% claimed to have voted at every election. “Provision of basic needs and public services was the most important feature of democracy and minimalist political citizenship’ with a view of gaining full political rights along with social citizenship rights,” he added.

Emphasising that low quality of public institutions and their unfair working have resulted in poor subjective human wellbeing he said that the fragile social citizenship, which has generated a low level of trust in public institutions and officials. 

“State responsibility on marginalised people shall not end up with the granting of legal form citizenship, it has to ensure fundamental requirements at the policy, legal and institutional level to enable them enjoy substantial benefits of legal citizenship,” he said.

Dr. Ramesh, citing Sri Lanka as an example, said that the Sri Lankan case explains that when stateless people regain the legal form of citizenship, they need to develop their capacity, civic virtues, skills, social capital, and other abilities, to have fair knowledge and awareness regarding public service delivery, institutional working, rules, and regulations.

Citizenship rights vs. civic engagement 

“The study therefore, suggests that formal citizenship rights, are necessary but not sufficient for true civic engagement, social justice and equality,” he stressed.

He noted that there is a substantial gap between constitutional guarantee that establish the legal status of citizenship and the citizenship that in practice and low quality of public institutions and their unfair working have resulted in poor subjective human wellbeing, fragile social citizenship, which has generated a low level of trust in public institutions and officials.

“State responsibility on marginalised people shall not end up with the granting of legal form citizenship, it has to ensure fundamental requirements at the policy, legal and institutional level to enable them enjoy substantial benefits of legal citizenship,” he said.

Dr. Ramesh explained that the Sri Lankan case explained that when stateless people regain the legal form of citizenship, they needed to develop their capacity, civic virtues, skills, social capital, and other abilities, to have fair knowledge and awareness regarding public service delivery, institutional working, rules, and regulations.