Lawyers for Human Rights (South Africa)

Regions: South Africa
Website: www.lhr.org.za

Lawyers for Human Rights is an independent human rights organization with a 35-year track record of human rights activism and public interest litigation in South Africa. LHR uses the law as a positive instrument for change and to deepen the democratization of South African society. To this end, it provides free legal services to vulnerable, marginalized and indigent individuals and communities, both non-national and South African, who are victims of unlawful infringements of their constitutional rights.”

LHR established the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme (RMRP), which advocates, strengthens and enforces the rights of asylum-seekers, refugees and other marginalized categories of migrants in South Africa. Under this program, LHR launched the Statelessness Project, which focuses specifically on the situation of persons who do not qualify for citizenship under any nation’s legal system. This Project acknowledges that denial of citizenship is a serious human rights violation and that recognition of nationality serves as a key to a host of other rights. The objectives of the Statelessness Project are to: provide direct legal services to individuals; to identify and raise awareness of causes of statelessness and populations of concern; recommend and advocate for legislation, policies and procedures to address and prevent statelessness; and advocate for ratification of the two statelessness treaties.