The invisible crisis that strips people of citizenship

This article reflects on the complex and often invisible issue of statelessness, which the author has been exploring since 2017 but only recently understood in greater depth through partnership with the Global Movement Against Statelessness. While initially associating statelessness primarily with refugees fleeing persecution, the author learned it can result from various causes including bureaucratic failures, discriminatory nationality laws that prevent women from passing citizenship to children, state collapses like the USSR's dissolution, and authoritarian governments weaponizing citizenship revocation as a tool of oppression. The piece emphasizes how citizenship documentation requirements can be impossibly complex, particularly in countries like India where proof standards vary by birth year and many lack basic documents like birth certificates.