Thailand’s stateless people struggle as legal nobodies
The United Nations refugee agency says 487,000 stateless people registered with the Thai government this year
When Noknoi attended high school in northern Thailand, she dreaded roll-call every morning, when the teacher would call her first name and then say “nahm somut”, or “made up name” – the standard suffix for stateless children.
Thai pupils would snigger, and Noknoi and other so-called stateless children were often teased by pupils and teachers alike, she said.
“Being stateless meant having no identity,” she said.
“We were reminded of that every day, with even our names taken away – we were nobody,” she said.
Noknoi, who asked that her surname be withheld due to the sensitivity of the topic, was born in a Thai village near the border with Myanmar.
Her four siblings were also born in Thailand. But because their parents were from Myanmar, they were not recognised as Thai citizens until a few months ago – nearly three years after Noknoi applied for citizenship for all five of them.