The UN High Commission for Refugees gives historic reasons to explain the situation.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, says among the over 10 million Stateless people in the world, Côte d’Ivoire harbours 700,000 of them, RFI reported. These are people who do not have identification documents, cannot register in schools, open bank accounts or marry.
The UN High Commission for Refugees has just launched a campaign entitled, “I belong” in order to improve on the situation of Stateless people in the coming 10 years. Mohamed Touré, the Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Côte d’Ivoire said the influx of people without identification papers started in the country during the colonial period.
He said hundreds of thousands of immigrants trooped in to work in cocoa plantations and after independence in 1960, the people did not leave the country, especially to Upper Volta, present day Burkina Faso.
The people did not neither benefit from the Ivorian nationality at that time nor did ask for it. They could not either have the Burkinabe nationality since it was inexistent, Mohamed Touré said. The people were estimated to be 400,000. The number of people without identification documents is further compounded by abandoned children. The UNHCR senior official said this category of people is estimated at 300,000. The situated is caused by the fact that the law in Cote d’Ivoire does not provide for nationality to be given to parentless children.
