eurasiareview
East-West Center 
Displaced Rohingya in Myanmar. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency
Across Southeast Asia, millions of people are stateless, either by circumstance or design. Some of those lacking legal national identity are refugees or migrants, but most are minorities in the countries of their birth, many living without adequate access to critical services like health care and education.
Some progress is being made, however. A recent East-West Center analysis examining the status of these populations found that several governments and civil organizations have taken steps in the past decade to address the complex causes of statelessness. “Since the forced mass exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar, many have reached the shores of Malaysia and Indonesia, driving home the implications of unresolved situations of statelessness,” writes researcher Christoph Sperfeldt in Legal Identity and Statelessness in Southeast Asia, part of EWC’s AsiaPacific Issues series of analysis papers. “Policy responses of states in the region have focused on identifying affected persons, improving civil registration, law reforms, facilitating naturalization, and building new digital identification systems.”