Network of Statelessness Victims in al-Hasakah (NSVH)

The Network of Statelessness Victims in al-Hasakah (NSVH) is an independent initiative led by the victims themselves. It provides a comprehensive framework for coordination, solidarity, and knowledge exchange among those who were stripped of Syrian nationality or born without a civil registry due to the Special Census of 5 October 1962, and the subsequent exclusionary policies.

The Network seeks to transform the injustice inherited for more than six decades into organized collective work, enabling victims to represent themselves, narrate their experiences, and pursue their claims while guaranteeing the right to nationality, establishing legal recognition, and putting an end to deprivation across generations.

NSVH adopts a comprehensive and inclusive rights-based approach, promoting recognition, reparation, institutional reform, and guarantees of non-recurrence, along with emphasizing equality and non-discrimination between women and men with respect to the rights related to nationality and civil status, including passing the nationality to children. These principles guide the Network’s work in legal protection and individual accompaniment/support, documentation and memory-building, advocacy, legislative reform, integrating the issue into truth and transitional justice processes.

 

Why NSVH?

NSVH was established in response to the painful reality of hundreds of thousands of people—mostly Kurds—being stripped of their right to citizenship under the 1962 Census. This gave rise to two main categories of stateless persons:

1. Ajanib al-Hasakah: Registered in special books, and issued red cards labelling them as “foreigners” in their own homeland;
2. Maktumeen al-Qayd: Left entirely off the records, without any documents proving their legal existence.

By 2011, more than 517,000 people were estimated to be stateless. Legislative Decree 49 of 2011, restored the nationality to the majority of those in the “Ajanib” Category, yet over 150,000 people —mostly Maktumeen, remained outside the framework of nationality.

Thousands of families inherited the consequences of deprivation across generations. Children grew up without legal documents or official identity, deprived of legal personality and the rights it entails: access to education, healthcare, employment, property ownership, freedom of movement, representation, and participation in public life.

Driven by this perspective, NSVH—as an independent, victim-led initiative—reframes the issue within a human rights framework, treating it as a collective wound requiring recognition and comprehensive redress. It provides a unified voice for advocacy, protection, dignity, and reform, and represents a practical step toward a future where no child is born without a name or a homeland.

The term “victims of statelessness” encompasses those deprived of nationality or born outside the civil registry due to the 1962 Census and its aftermath, regardless of administrative classification—whether Ajanib al-Hasakah, Maktumeen al-Qayd, or other successive categories subjected to deprivation.

 

NSVH Vision:

A society where dignity of victims of statelessness and their families is upheld through recognition, truth and justice, and in which full citizenship and guarantees of non-recurrence are achieved as pillars of a fair and comprehensive peace in Syria.

 

NSVH Mission:

Organizing and empowering statelessness victims and their families to represent themselves and advocate for their rights through legal protection and individual support, documentation and memory-building, advocacy and legislative reform, and the integration of the issue into truth and transitional justice processes. Strengthening capacities, partnerships, and early monitoring mechanisms to ensure equality and non-discrimination, while breaking the cycle of deprivation across generations.

 

NSVH Values:

• Independence: A victim-led, free from partisan rivalries, with a human rights and humanitarian approach.
•  Safety, confidentiality and do no harm: Ensuring data protection, privacy, and risk assessment before any intervention.
• Purposeful participation and victim leadership: Enabling genuine self-representation and safe spaces for expression and decision-making.
• Accountability and transparency: Clear decision-making and resource management, with active involvement of members in issues affecting their lives.
• Dignity and non-discrimination: Safeguarding human dignity and respecting victims’ experiences and suffering, free from stigma or discrimination.
•  Justice and reparation: Formal recognition of the right to nationality and legal personality, provision of individual and collective reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence.
• Gender sensitivity and childhood: Removing barriers to the registration of vital events, enabling nationality transfer, and safeguarding the best interests of the child.

 

Focus Areas of NSVH:

1. Legal protection and individual accompaniment: A legal guidance and accompaniment to prove vital events (births, deaths, marriages); establish the legal personality, recognize documents, and accept reasonable evidence; and support the measures of restoring civil rights and equality in citizenship rights.
2. Documentation and building public memory: Documenting cases of deprivation, its patterns and effects, and building a collective memory that protects against non-existence and supports the truth.
3. Advocacy and legislative reform: Local/national advocacy campaigns, policy notes, draft of laws/procedural amendments to ensure the equality of transferring the nationality and the children’s right to birth registration.
4. Inclusion in transitional justice processes: Incorporating the issue within mechanisms of truth, recognition, collective reparation, institutional reform, and guarantees of non-recurrence.
5. Capacity building and community empowerment: Training the victims/families on their legal rights, secure documentation skills, public participation, and peer support.
6. Partnerships and representation: Coordination with national and international human rights bodies, civil status authorities, and relevant organizations; exchanging experiences and building alliances.
7. Monitoring and early warning: Ongoing follow-up of new cases and safe referral to specialized services.

 

Terms and Criteria for Joining (the Network Membership):

The NSVH is a shared space for victims and their families, built on justice, dignity, and solidarity, and open to all the individuals affected by statelessness without any discrimination. The joining requirements:

• Consistency with vision, mission and values: Seeking recognition, justice and full citizenship.
• Integrity and transparency: Being honest and clear in sharing information, and refraining from any form of exploitation or unlawful gain.
• Cooperation and solidarity: Working in a collective spirit to achieve common goals.
• Commitment to confidentiality and data protection: Respecting the confidentiality of information exchanged within the Network and not sharing it with unauthorized parties, ensuring the privacy and security of victims and their families.
• Independence from political rivalries: Focusing on the human rights and humanitarian nature of the issue.