Imagine a scenario where your home country is replaced without notice–boundaries redrawn and new countries surface overnight. To which state do you belong? Now consider the new laws and policies governing you and your family. Are you included, protected, and given rights? Or do you find yourself marginalized and unsafe because your community is excluded from citizenship?

In many parts of the world, colonialism’s unraveling introduced certain benefits, yet a number of grave challenges still persist today as people grapple with governance structures and partitioned lands. Exclusionary colonial-era laws–often carried over into the new state–prescribed unclear definitions of who would be considered a citizen–leaving minority groups devastated and disenfranchised. These very same laws also complicated and failed to recognize protection needs of those fleeing persecution, thus creating no legal distinction between refugees and other foreign nationals. These gaps in legislation continue to disrupt rights access as stateless communities and refugees often live with legal precarity for decades.

Along with 30 million refugees worldwide, UNHCR estimates that approximately 10 million individuals fall under the statelessness category–one-third of which are understood to be children. Without citizenship, birth certificates, passports, and other legal identity documents, statelessness is often passed down from generation to generation—creating a perpetual cycle of legal vulnerability.

Lack of legal protection, status, and documentation, are shared challenges facing both stateless communities and refugees. The absence of a legal identity seeps into everyday life, hindering access to even the most basic of human rights. Stateless communities and refugees around the globe struggle to access medical care, banking services, and jobs in the formal economy and government sectors. While each stateless and refugee story is unique—carrying with it its own legal barriers and challenges—it’s nearly impossible for stateless and refugee communities to obtain driver’s licenses, own a home or property, nor exercise their rights to vote. Mobility is limited, as travel outside of the country is frequently forbidden—putting them at risk of arrest and detention. Children are forced to take on low-wage jobs as their ability to enroll in public schools remains restricted. South Asia, a region still experiencing the effects of its colonial history, is grappling with a number of challenges, including marginalization of certain communities.