Thailand adopted a measure aimed at dramatically reducing statelessness, addressing the situation for nearly 500,000 people who are currently registered as stateless in the Southeast Asian country.
“This is a historic development,” states Ms. Hai Kyung Jun, UN refugee agency Director for Asia and the Pacific.
At the Global Refugee Forum 2023, Thailand pledged to resolve statelessness, a situation 335,000 longtime residents and members of officially recognized minority ethnic groups, along with some 142,000 of their children born in Thailand, must deal with. Determined to fix the problem, Thailand became a founding member of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness, an initiative launched by UNHCR, and got involved in the Get Every One in the Picture campaign which promotes the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Decade across Asia and the Pacific.
