UNHCR tells a story of a stateless woman through the sand animation
Svitlana’s life* couldn’t be called an easy one. It leaked like the sand through her fingers and disappeared. A stateless person. This verdict sounds even worse as she had a child in her arms; and even more dramatic as she was diagnosed with cancer.
On World Cancer Day, we would like to share her story, which deeply moved us.
Svitalana was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. She then moved to the Russian Federation and since 1995 she has been living in Ukraine with a Soviet passport. She gave life to her daughter Katerina*. 4 years after her child’s birth, she lost her passport and hasn’t been able to get a new one since. According to the laws of each of the three states, she is a national of none of them. Neither she nor her child were able to obtain a residence permit for stateless persons as there are no legal grounds for her to be able to remain in Ukraine.
Living in a country undocumented, Svitalana and Katerina were deprived of the most basic rights: education, employment, medical care, banking, etc. De jure, they simply do not exist.
In 2018, Svitlana was diagnosed with cancer. From that time on, she fully felt the disadvantages of not having a passport – she was denied access to healthcare: she could not be registered at the outpatient clinic, could not obtain a prescription, and could not even undergo a free medical examination.
In May 2019, her condition worsened, and in October she died. But even after her death, the problems did not stop. Her daughter was barely able to obtain a death certificate and perform cremation – her mother’s last wish.
Unfortunately, statelessness was passed onto her daughter, Katerina. Although she was born in Ukraine, she did not acquire nationality due to the lack of legitimate reasons for her mother to stay in the country. Because of the lack of procedure for establishing statelessness status, Katerina does not have a residence permit and is also deprived of basic human rights.
Svitlana never gave up, and this power was passed onto her daughter. Katerina believes that the lack of appropriate legislation for stateless persons cannot last forever, that gaps in Ukrainian law shouldn’t be ground to violate human rights, and eventually she her first passport.
We are grateful to the lawyers of the partner organization “Right to Protection” for their great support to Svitlana’s family, especially during her illness. We are grateful to everyone who was not indifferent and tried to save Svitlana’s life – to doctors and friends.
Thank you Kyiv Sand Theater “Golden Lion” for showing the story through sand animation!
* All names were changed for security reasons.
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