As a stateless person, Christiana is invisible – except for the tax office

Christiana Bukalo was born in Germany in 1994. She grew up in Puchheim near Munich in Bavaria, went to school there and volunteered for the Protestant Church. She then studied communication management and business administration and started her professional career.

It is a CV that fits like a template to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other careers. And yet Christiana Bukalo is different – or so says the state. But which one? Only one thing is clear: Christiana Bukalo doesn't really belong anywhere. She is stateless.

There are around 126,000 stateless people living in Germany

It is estimated that there are 15 million people without citizenship worldwide. Around 126,000 stateless people live in Germany; one in three of them was born here. A person is stateless if no state recognizes them as a citizen. The reasons for statelessness vary. Missing birth records or birth certificates, wars and the dissolution of states, the loss of nationality and discrimination against minorities are some of them. Even if the parents have no or unclear citizenship, the child can also become stateless.

This was also the case with Christiana Bukalo's family. When her parents came to Germany from West Africa in the 1990s, they had presented “insufficient proof of nationality”, which was therefore marked “unclear”. Christiana Bukalo was therefore unable to inherit her parents' nationality or acquire German citizenship, as this cannot be acquired by birth. “Unfortunately, it happens relatively quickly: from the moment I cannot inherit another nationality, but the country in which I am born also refuses to grant me citizenship, I become stateless,” she said in an interview with FOCUS online during the Ashoka Summit in Hamburg, of which FOCUS Online is a media partner.

To acquire German citizenship, it is not enough to be born in Germany, to speak the language, to have lived here for at least eight years and to have sufficient financial means. The most important requirement is a clear identity and citizenship. “The problem with stateless people is that their identity is only considered clear once their statelessness has been recognized.” “But we in Germany do not have a clear procedure for this,” says Christiana Bukalo. This is why many stateless people have had problems naturalizing and, in contrast to third-country nationals, have had “extreme disadvantages.”

Stateless people are not allowed to vote, travel or check into a hotel

Statelessness is about much more than just belonging to a nation and a bit of bureaucracy. It is about basic human rights. For example, stateless people are not allowed to vote. “Although we are 100 percent influenced by political decisions, we have zero say,” says Christiana Bukalo. Getting married is also difficult.

In addition, everyday things are sometimes impossible for those affected. “I couldn't enroll at a public university at the time because I couldn't do that without citizenship,” says Christiana Bukalo, who has a residence card instead of an ID card – a type of proof of residence, but not proof of identity. Opening a business account also comes with hurdles, as does registering SIM cards, checking in online at hotels – basically everything required an ID card or passport.

Traveling is also difficult. “I couldn't travel for a long time. “As a child, for example, I couldn't just go to the school camp,” she says. Because of her voluntary work for the church, she was unable to supervise camps abroad. She didn't get a travel pass for foreigners until she was 18.

“There remains a constant feeling that you have no support here”

In addition to the administrative hassles, statelessness is also a psychological burden. “In addition, there is this long-lasting feeling that you have no support here and are not protected by the system,” says Christiana Bukalo. There is no one to turn to when you have challenges, and rejection “from the country that is the only one you know” is omnipresent. “I'm not supposed to be here, but I can't leave either, and that's a really strange feeling,” she says.

Since 70 percent of all stateless people belong to a minority, “double discrimination” is often inevitable. Christiana Bukalo has also experienced racially motivated discrimination because of the color of her skin. “It is difficult to separate the different experiences of discrimination that one is exposed to,” she says. The suffering of those affected quickly becomes invisible – after all, the public does not notice stateless people.

A disastrous travel attempt changes everything for Christiana Bukalo

Their statelessness used to be a “very shameful” and taboo subject for them. They tried to ignore it as best they could and responded to obstacles with detours. However, a failed attempt to travel to Morocco – their first trip abroad – a few years ago marked a turning point in their lives.

Had a war happened? After intensive research into the travel conditions and contacting the German immigration authorities and the Moroccan embassy, ​​she flew to Morocco with her travel document for foreigners, a German passport replacement document. “At the airport, I was then confronted with the fact that I was not allowed to enter the country,” she reports. She had to wait there for 20 hours before the next flight back to Germany. This took her not to Munich, however, but to Düsseldorf.

After a nine-hour bus ride and more than a day of travel, Christiana Bukalo was back home. Morocco – still an unknown country for her. “It was such a traumatic experience for me that I wished that something like that would never happen to anyone else again,” she says.

Christiana Bukalo only realized on her return journey, in the middle of the night on the bus while doing some research on her cell phone, that there were more than 100,000 other people in Germany, according to a table from the Federal Statistical Office. “I was simply shocked by the number of people. “I always thought it was just me and my sisters,” she says. “But with so many people affected – how can it be that there are no solutions?”

Statefree aims to achieve equal rights for stateless people through projects

In order to change this and to make stateless people visible in society, Christiana Bukalo co-founded “Statefree” around four years ago. The organization's mission: to create equality, belonging and participation for stateless people. “Everything that a person needs to develop in society and to be able to contribute something to it is always limited or restricted for stateless people,” she says. “Our ultimate goal is that stateless people have the right to live a completely normal life like everyone else,” she says.

Statefree wants to achieve this with three pillars: community, visibility and equality.

1. Community aims to bring stateless people together locally or virtually to show them that they are not alone.
2. visibility The Statefree team tries to create through education, after all, only visible problems can be solved.
3. Equality stands for political work and exchange with representatives at federal and state level.

“Statelessness is not only a hurdle for those affected, but also for the authorities, who do not receive enough guidance on how to deal with it.” “This leads to cases piling up or having to be reviewed again and again,” says Christiana Bukalo. The 36,000 stateless people born in Germany alone have to repeatedly visit authorities because of unclear issues – “although there is no country in the world that knows more about these people than Germany itself.”

Statefree Case Assistant is designed to help with the application for naturalization

Statefree is currently working on a project to overcome one of the many bureaucratic hurdles – with the help of the Statefree Case Assistant. This digital tool is intended to be a solution to the lack of a statelessness determination procedure in Germany. “The Case Assistant is intended to help stateless people collect the evidence and alternative means of proof that they have to prove their statelessness and identity and to use this to generate an application that they can ultimately help submit to the authorities,” explains the co-founder of Statefree. The tool is currently in the development phase and is intended to serve as a blueprint for other European countries in the future.

In addition, a campaign will be launched in the autumn to mark the 70th anniversary of the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons.

Members of Parliament exchange ideas with organisation

Christiana Bukalo is particularly proud of two achievements. Firstly, the Statefree Dinner, where MPs who worked on the nationality law and community members discussed the issue of statelessness at an equal dinner.

Secondly, it was a legal innovation. “It wasn't the solution we wanted,” she says. Statefree had originally drafted four complaints to the federal government about how statelessness could be embedded in the new nationality law. The demands were not included in the law, but there was a legal regulation and a resolution recommendation from the Interior Committee. This recognizes the need for action on statelessness and stipulates that the Interior Ministry will henceforth act as a contact person for stateless people. “And that has never happened before,” says Christiana Bukalo.

“Only the tax office has never had any doubts about my identity”

She fundamentally welcomes the concept of citizenship as long as it protects people and does not exclude anyone. However, belonging to a country is often used as a political tool to discriminate against people, thus missing its purpose.

“Stateless people are often accused of not having an identity or of not having a clear identity,” says Christiana Bukalo. “But that is absurd, everyone has an identity – even without citizenship. It is also about creating a structure in which we can check and legally recognize identity even without citizenship.

No authority has ever caused her any problems in this regard. “The tax office has never had any doubts about my identity,” she says. She has had an identification number since her first job around 14 years ago. She has never had any problems paying taxes. “You notice how the state can accept certain things if they are to the state's advantage.” There is always talk of rights and responsibilities. “But I have all the responsibilities – and not all the rights.”