Members
of Parliament last week ratified the United Nations Convention on Stateless
Persons and the Protocol to the Constitutive Act of the African Union relating
to the Pan-African Parliament.
The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, on behalf of the
Government of Sierra Leone, signed the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations
of 1963, the 1954 Convention on the Status of Statelessness Persons and the
1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the Protocol to the
Constitutive Act of the African Union.
Minister of State 1 in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Mohamed Gibril Sesay, told lawmakers that the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 is among core treaties of the
United Nations, as adopted by the General Assembly.
He said though that since its
adoption the treaty has been signed and ratified by 177 countries out of 193
member states of the UN, adding that Sierra Leone was among the few remaining
member states that were yet to accede to the convention, even though the
country is broadly engaged in consular diplomacy.
He noted that the purpose of
seeking to accede to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations was to
facilitate peaceful and efficient conduct of the country’s consular relations
in host countries, to establish more consulates and appoint consuls
representing the country’s interest abroad, to provide for consuls in host
countries and certain privileges and immunities.
Speaking on the Convention on
the Reduction of Statelessness, he said the UN addressed the condition of
statelessness, which is increasingly becoming a major global concern, in the
convention.
He said the purpose of
accession was for Sierra Leone, along with other international partners, to put
in place a protection mechanism to ensure that people identified as stateless
would have protection within the international legal framework of the UN.
Dr Sesay explained that people
prone to statelessness are mainly women and children who may be born without
identity papers or are made to suffer because of discriminatory legislations
and other factors that may render them stateless during turbulent times.
“Adherence
to the two conventions is therefore important and necessary in the world today.
It is estimated that over ten million people are stateless. West Africa and the
continent at large have equally not been spared of this condition.
International attention has been drawn to the issue of statelessness due to the
horrifying experiences to which stateless persons are often subjected,
including the denial of a nationality, legally identity and dignity of people,” he said.
He
furthered that to date, not much seems to have been done at the national level
by way of raising awareness about the issue, while no specific policy action had
been taken in the past to address the issue of statelessness in the country. “We need to act to
address this matter. There is need to identify and collect data on people that
are stateless in our demographic surveys, to cater for such category of persons
in our socio-economic development framework,” he maintained.
Deputy Chairman of the Foreign
Affairs Committee in Parliament. Hon. Dauda J.B. Kallon, noted that Sierra
Leoneans in foreign country might be classified as stateless because of the
condition they find themselves in.
He expressed hope that the
ratification of the conventions would mean that the lack of recognition of
people would lessen, and urged that the conventions be ratified by his
colleagues within the shortest possible time. The House unanimously ratified
the conventions.
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