Sierra Leone: Action plan on statelessness

Published: 27/Jun/2017
Source: Awoko (Freetown)

By Ade Campbell

On Thursday 22 June 2017, over 50 participants concluded a three-day workshop to develop a National Action Plan to End Statelessness at the Bintumani Hotel, Aberdeen.

16 MPs attended and worked to develop the action plan, which now needs collective efforts to implement.

Hon. Paran Tarawalli of Constituency 69 in Bo District, pledged support, noting that since the start of the process to end statelessness, Parliament played an important role. He said, “With other state actors they will identify the gaps in existing laws that discriminate against people with no nationality. We will continue to look into the laws and before 2024, discriminatory laws would have been changed”.

Ann-Marie Sidique, the Government Focal Point on statelessness in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, disclosed some of the laws regarding nationality and citizenship are weak, old and discriminatory. Reports show that there is no quantitative or qualitative data on migrants in Sierra Leone.

Participants from the Social Welfare, Health, and Civil Registration Authority also made meaningful contributions, calling for constant engagement with various Ministries, Department and Agencies and the need for Government to be more committed to provide the enabling environment to meet the 2024, statelessness eradication deadline.

Read on Awoko website: http://awoko.org/2017/06/27/sierra-leone-news-action-plan-on-statelessness/

 

Themes: Statelessness
Regions: Sierra Leone
Year: 2017