VOA标准英语2011--Millions Of Stateless People Denied Basi

Millions Of Stateless People Denied Basic Rights

The UN High Commissioner¹ for Refugees has launched a global campaign to raise awareness² of the plight³ of millions of stateless people around the world. The UNHCR says an estimated 12 million people live in a legal limbo⁴.
Because they have no nationality, stateless people often are denied the basic rights enjoyed by those who are citizens of a country, including the right to employment, housing, education and health care.
Oftoboy Kadibayeva is a 34 -year old mother of four. Her oldest daughter is mentally handicapped and her youngest child has no birth certificate. She and her husband used to have Soviet⁵ passports, which were destroyed during the inter-ethnic⁶ violence that erupted in Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, rendering⁷ them stateless.
“Since I am a stateless person and do not have a passport, I have problems with updating proper documents for my children. Second, my daughter’s social allowance documents are not valid⁸ anymore. I have to renew them, but since I do not have a passport, this is an issue. I cannot get a birth certificate for my youngest child. Since I am a stateless person and have no documents, I do not have proper access to medical care.”
Stateless people have no nationality.
Therefore, countries usually deny them the protections and services available to citizens. People who are stateless often have no right to schooling⁹ or health care.
They may not be able to own property, travel abroad, get married legally, or register the birth of a child-as in the case of Kadibayeva’s youngest child. With few resources and few advocates, stateless people are considered some of the most vulnerable people in the world.
UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller, says stateless people live in a shadowy limbo. They are essentially¹⁰ invisible.
"People who are stateless people, that is people who do not have an effective nationality or a country that is prepared to exercise protection and consular¹¹ services on their behalf, they are exceedingly vulnerable people. Why? Because they are a hidden population quite often."
Even when they die, Feller says their passing goes unnoticed. They are not issued a death certificate.
“You can die as a stateless person and there is no record of your death because you do not exist and therefore your death is an irrelevancy¹².”
Feller says being stateless increases the risk of children being trafficked. They easily disappear because there is no record of them. She says stateless people are vulnerable to slavery, prostitution and other abuse.
"For example, being recruited into armed forces or being subject to forced labor¹³. Again, without the protection of the law, protection that a state responsible for you gives you, you are fair game."
There are various causes of statelessness. A major factor is often racial or ethnic discrimination. For example, Mauritania expelled around 75,000 Black Mauritanians in 1989.
Gender¹⁴ discrimination is another big cause of statelessness. Around 30 countries, including Morocco, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, do not allow a mother, who is married to a foreigner, to pass her nationality on to her children.
Nationality also is lost through state secession.
Head of UNHCR Stateless Unit, Mark Manly¹⁵ notes in the early 1990s, more than half of the world’s stateless lost their nationality because of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Yugoslav Federation¹⁶.
"It is important to point out that indeed many, many people have acquired…the nationality of one of these successor states. And, in the case of the Russian Federation, according to the Russian authorities, the figure would be over 500,000 people since 2003."
International treaties were developed in 1954 and 1961 to resolve statelessness of millions of people. They provide minimum standards of treatment and a legal framework to help states reduce statelessness.
The UNHCR is calling on more countries to sign up to these treaties and eliminate the legal barriers that create statelessness.
The UN agency notes Bangladesh, Brazil, Iraq, Vietnam, and Indonesia are some of the countries that have successfully amended¹⁷ their laws over the last decade to confer citizenship¹⁸ upon their stateless populations.

1 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

2 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

3 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

4 limbo   

n.地狱的边缘；监狱

参考例句：

• His life seemed stuck in limbo and he could not go forward and he could not go back.他的生活好像陷入了不知所措的境地，进退两难。
• I didn't know whether my family was alive or dead.I felt as if I was in limbo.我不知道家人是生是死，感觉自己茫然无措。

5 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

6 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

7 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

8 valid   

adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的

参考例句：

• His claim to own the house is valid.他主张对此屋的所有权有效。
• Do you have valid reasons for your absence?你的缺席有正当理由吗？

9 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

10 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

11 consular   

a.领事的

参考例句：

• He has rounded out twenty years in the consular service. 他在领事馆工作已整整20年了。
• Consular invoices are declarations made at the consulate of the importing country. 领事发票是进口国领事馆签发的一种申报书。

12 irrelevancy   

n.不恰当，离题，不相干的事物

参考例句：

13 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

14 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

15 manly   

adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地

参考例句：

• The boy walked with a confident manly stride.这男孩以自信的男人步伐行走。
• He set himself manly tasks and expected others to follow his example.他给自己定下了男子汉的任务，并希望别人效之。

16 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

17 Amended   

adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He asked to see the amended version. 他要求看修订本。
• He amended his speech by making some additions and deletions. 他对讲稿作了些增删修改。

18 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。