Nowhere People by Greg Constantine

Nowhere People is the name of the current exhibition at the Myanmar Deitta Gallery by photographer Greg Constantine. This is a ten-year project carried out in 18 countries by the US photographer. He is currently based in Asia.

It will run until 27 of November (this Sunday), and you have the possibility to put your name down on a list to order the photographer's book on this topic which will be shipped to Yangon. 

According to the UN, around ten million people worldwide are stateless (without any citizenship) due to different circumstances mainly because of inconsistent or inadequate citizenship laws, and the lack of documentation. Discrimination and intolerance often contributes or are the reasons why these people cannot get the citizenship of the country they live in, in many cases for generations.

"Indian Tamils (or Hill Tamils) were brought to Sri Lanka by the British over 100 years ago to provide labour on tea plantations. For years Hill Tamils were denied citizenship. in 2003, new laws were passed but thousands continue to remain stateless.."

"...without documents I have no future"

"In 1936, Stalin deported the entire Korean community in the Soviet Far East (172,000 people) to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Thousands began migrating to Ukraine after the break up of the Soviet Union where many are denied citizenship and are stateless..."

"There are almost 600,000 stateless people in Europe. The collape of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia made several communities stateless. in Ukraine, Crimean Tatars were deported en masse by Stalin...In Serbia, thousands of people from the Roma community displaced from Kosovo are stateless, many of them are children...."

"The Dominican Republic is one of the most radical situations of statelessness in the world today. Deep-rooted racism against Haitians have resulted in tens of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descend denied or stripped of their Dominican nationality...." 

"In Arabic, "Bedoon" means "without". For decades, the Bedoon in Kuwait have been denied Kuwait citizenship. Though they have lived in Kuwait for generations...".

"For years, youth from the Nubian community in Kenia have to prove their connection to Kenya when they turned 18 to receive a National ID card, which represents Kenyan nationality...."

And, of course, the examples could go on....