The Atlantic
Spotlight - Nov 8, 2015 - 15 PhotosEMILY ANNE EPSTEIN
Greg Constantine has spent a decade photographing people with no documentation, and no rights. Working with various refugee groups and non-governmental organizations, Constantine has visited stateless communities in 18 countries—including Sri Lanka, Kenya, Kuwait, Crimea, Italy, and the Dominican Republic.
His new book, Nowhere People, gives an unparalleled view of what it is like to be denied citizenship. "In most cases, they cannot work legally, receive basic state health-care services, obtain an education, open a bank account or benefit from even the smallest development programs," Constantine said. "As non-persons, they are excluded from participating in the political process and are removed from the protection of laws, leaving them vulnerable to extortion, harassment and any number of human-rights abuses." Without passports or any identification papers, these families typically cannot travel to pursue a better life, and at the same time, are at risk of deportation from their own homes.
The images in Nowhere People negate the idea that these men, women and children are non-persons. Hope and determination explode through the black and white frames. Personal stories and interviews populate the book as well, adding rich layers of language and history, and show Constantine’s commitment to bearing witness. By capturing the lives of these stateless people on camera, Constantine creates a kind documentation that governments have long denied them.
Below is a selection of images from his powerful book as well as captions provided by the photographer.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Galjeel were stripped of their Kenyan identity documents and evicted from their land. All forms of identification were taken from this 43-year-old woman as part of a screening process to identify migrants from Somalia. Now her children have no identification either. # © Greg Constantine
Hundreds of thousands of Dalits who live in the Terai area of southern Nepal are without Nepalese nationality and live a hand-to-mouth existence. A group of Dalits in the town of Lahan sit in a tractor-pulled wagon after spending the day doing odd jobs. # © Greg Constantine
This 44-year-old woman is a Lebanese national and gave birth to her daughter in 2005. However, because her husband is stateless and Lebanese law does not permit a woman to pass on citizenship to her children, her daughter and son are both stateless. # © Greg Constantine
After violence erupted in June 2012, tens of thousands of Rohingya were forced into camps for internally displaced people. Some 2,200 people fled to the Thet Kay PyinYwar Ma mosque and madrassa in Myanmar after their homes were destroyed. # © Greg Constantine
Tens of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent are stateless in the Dominican Republic. Julien, 92, cuts the hair of a three-year-old boy born in the Dominican Republic but denied a birth certificate because his parents are of Haitian descent. # © Greg Constantine
A 15-year-old child holds a folder of papers that contains the names and dates of birth for himself and his six brothers and sisters. The only record of their birthdays is this piece of paper, hand-written by his father, who passed away in 2012. He was born to a Roma family that fled from Kosovo to Serbia in 1999. Due to a number of reasons, many Roma children are unable to be properly registered at birth. # © Greg Constantine
Three men from the Bidoon community sit at a diwaniya, or “reception area.” It is estimated that some 108,000 people from the Bidoon community in Kuwait are stateless. Translated from Arabic, Bidoon means “without.” Though they have lived in Kuwait for generations, they are denied any number of social, civil, economic, and political rights. All three of the men pictured are unemployed because most Kuwaiti companies are prevented from legally hiring Bidoon. # © Greg Constantine
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority from Myanmar. Over 140,000 Rohingya in Myanmar were displaced from their homes during ethnic violence in 2012 and have been forced to live in internment camps. # © Greg Constantine
The husband of this 20-year-old Urdu-speaking girl left her to marry a local woman in the hope of obtaining Bangladeshi citizenship. She is going blind and has no family to help support her and her baby. She makes paper bags for money. # © Greg Constantine
A peaceful demonstration in late 2012 by the Bidoon community in Kuwait demanding their right to Kuwaiti citizenship was met with a violent crackdown by the authorities. # © Greg Constantine
Crimean Tatars face much discrimination and have been routinely blocked from fully integrating into Crimean society. The evening of February 10, 2009, some 220 headstones were destroyed in a Crimean Tatar graveyard. # © Greg Constantine
Children with Haitian ancestry stand outside their school and recite the Dominican Pledge of Allegiance as the Dominican flag is raised before classes. Most will not be permitted to go to school past the eigth grade because they have been denied documentation based on their Haitian ethnicity. #
© Greg Constantine
An ailing 75-year-old Urdu-speaking man sits alone in his room in Pat Godam Camp in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. He has no family left and does not have the resources to obtain health care. In Bangladesh, the Urdu-speaking Bihari community was stateless for more than 35 years. After Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of Bihari were moved into ghetto-like settlements in cities all over Bangladesh. In 2008, the Bihari were granted Bangladesh nationality but most are still denied passports, land ownership, employment in government, military, and trade-licenses. # © Greg Constantine
Rohingya in the internally displaced camps worry that an entire generation of Rohingya children will not have access to schools and an education. Most children, like 7-year-old Nur, who hauls mud at a worksite near one of the camps, have never been to school. # © Greg Constantine
Several thousand people from the Rakhine Buddhist community in Myanmar demonstrate through the streets of Sittwe in an anti-Rohingya and anti-UN protest. The demonstrators were protesting against the existence of a group called the “Rohingya” and against UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's use of the word “Rohingya” in a recent speech. # © Greg Constantine
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