It’s hard to live without your own state. A sense of belonging is one of the basic needs of a person. Citizenship is rather a virtual concept, but it presupposes a strong connection between an individual and the state, gives him a foundation under his feet, protecting vital interests, not to mention privileges and rights.
Who are they?
Apatrid is a Greek word that can be translated roughly as “without a homeland” or “deprived of a homeland”. This category considers people who cannot prove their belonging to the citizenship of any state. In reality, there are more people of this social class than it might seem, we are talking about tens, if not hundreds of thousands, because "stateless person" is a global concept.
Origin of stateless persons
This status can be obtained, for example, by being born into a marriage of two stateless people - such bad luck is probably not common, but judging by the presence of this clause of the rules, it still occurs. However, in addition, you must be born in a state that does not recognize soil rights. In one of the countries with milder legislation, a child will simply become a citizen upon birth on her territory. Also, the legal status of stateless persons collectively will receive all citizens of the state upon the termination of its existence. Of course, this variant of the emergence of such persons is not too realistic, since new ones will immediately form in the place of the disappeared powers. But there are cases when, when the state collapsed, people became stateless who could not establish a legal relationship with any of its fragments, history is known, this happened in the recent past. Also, a person may be deprived of citizenship, the motives in this case may be political, related to security or even be ethical, no matter how surprising it sounds. You can renounce citizenship on your own, although you will not be allowed to do so to those who did not give the state an honor, because a stateless person is a person who is not obliged to serve in the armed forces, and this would be a temptation for too many.
What do they have to do?
Stateless people enjoy national treatment. This means that they are all similar to citizens, with the exception of some restrictions. The rights of stateless persons are not equal to the rights of citizens with regard to elections; they cannot elect and be elected. The most important right of a stateless person is the right to cease to be so, since the state, at least in words, is everywhere heading for a reduction in the number of people in this category, which is called for by UN decisions. However, the question of how rich states are willing to give their citizenship to stateless people who come from poor countries remains open. An individual of this category cannot become president, and in Russia they will not tell him state secrets and will not be allowed to fly the aircraft, and will also not be accepted into the party. However, he shares these restrictions with a foreigner, but he is distinguished from the latter by the fact that the country of his citizenship will not intercede for a stateless person. Apatrid is a person who cannot be expected to call the embassy.