Pain that others don't see

Eight-year-old twin brothers are lying on an old mattress in a dilapidated house in the Vrela ribnička neighborhood in Podgorica, and swarms of flies are flying around them. They don't speak, they don't move, they don't smile. They cannot complain of pain. Cerebral palsy, from which they both suffer, was not treated in time. Their lives are now seriously threatened.

They do not receive help from the state, because they are stateless - they do not have citizenship or personal documents, even though they were born in Montenegro. Their father Bidaim came from Kosovo 24 years ago. The majority of stateless persons in Montenegro are members of the Roma and Egyptian communities. They suffer multiple discrimination, they do not have the possibility of health and social insurance, the right to disability benefits, to employment...

Bidaim failed to get documents in Montenegro, because he was not registered in Kosovo either and he came here without documents. "When I was born, my father didn't register me, he indulged in alcohol and didn't care about me. It marked me and my family for the rest of my life, because statelessness is hereditary. Now I don't know how to get the documents and help my children," he says Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG).

A twin who is several minutes older makes less progress. He eats only mushy food and is in great pain. He doesn't even communicate with his eyes in a stuffy room. Bidaim's second wife takes care of them day and night Danijela. The biological mother abandoned the twins soon after birth.

Danijela and Bidaim have another son, only a few months old, and they are expecting a new baby. They need more than 30 euros a week just to replace breast milk. They have no money for medicine and therapy for the twins.

"Once the younger twin was very sick, he was urinating blood. We went to the hospital immediately and I spent 12 days there with him. After that I was neither alive nor dead. "Sometimes we get medicines from some private pharmacies from the good people who work there, but they mostly refuse us because we don't have prescriptions," says Danijela.

On one occasion, they received a referral from the doctor for the older twin to the "Dr. Simo Milošević" Institute in Igalo. They were happy about the opportunity and headed from Podgorica to the Institute. But they immediately returned them from there because the child did not have a health card. "Then how did we get the instruction in the first place? "Problems with documentation are the main reason why my children cannot receive treatment," says Bidaim.

If treated and started in time, people with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that affects body movement and balance, can significantly improve their quality of life.

It is not officially known how many people from the Roma and Egyptian community have disabilities in Montenegro. However, some data indicate that these numbers are worrying and that the position of these people in communities that otherwise have many problems is even more complicated. It is the most difficult for those who do not have papers, because they are effectively without rights and cannot receive free treatment.

People with disabilities (PWDs) in these communities are in an even bigger problem, an assistant at the Center for Roma Initiatives (CRI) told CIN-CG. Jovana Knežević. "PWDs are at multiple risk, even of becoming stateless due to lack of formality, inability to visit institutions and the like".

A quarter of homes have people with serious health conditions

In the "Analysis of the needs for the establishment of services for Roma and Egyptian children in Montenegro" from 2020, it is pointed out that at least one person with a serious health condition or a disability lives in a quarter of the households. Even 40 percent of them are in bad or very bad health. It is also added that 40 percent of community members do not have regulated health care.

The analysis also points to the problem of lack of data. The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (MRSS) does not keep records of beneficiaries of financial benefits based on nationality and ethnicity, as they also announced for CIN-CG, due to legal provisions regarding the prohibition of discrimination. "In the Information System of Social Care, there is no provision for records of users based on nationality and ethnicity," stated that Government Department.

"If it is taken into account that persons of the RE nationality are in a much less favorable position compared to others, then the implementation of special measures for that community would not only not be contrary to the principle of equality, but would contribute to the achievement of essential equality", it is written in that analysis.

According to the data provided by the local centers for social work for analysis purposes, there are only seven beneficiaries of material benefits based on disability from the RE community. One receives this compensation in Kotor, five in Nikšić and one from the Center for Social Work, which covers Berane, Andrijevica and Petnjica.

From these populations, according to the analysis, there are only four users of day care centers for children with developmental disabilities - three are in Herceg Novi, and one goes to the Day Care Center for the area of ​​Beran, Andrijevica and Petnjica.

These data do not show the real state of affairs, because many municipalities, such as Podgorica and Ulcinj, do not keep records of users by nationality, although according to the 2011 population census, a large number of members of the RE community live in those cities and that is where their problems are most pronounced.

The disabled girl was a victim of arranged marriage and abuse

Among the victims of arranged marriages, who are assisted by CRI, there is also a girl with disabilities, whose uncle arranged a marriage in Kosovo. CRI resolved the case in June of this year.

This girl, with problems in psychophysical development, is 21 years old today. Some time ago she was forced into marriage. She grew up with her mother and grandmother. When they passed away, her uncle took her away from Montenegro. He is selling the apartment where she lived to neighbors without authorization. "According to the victim's statement, her uncle arranged her marriage in Kosovo, and he took several thousand euros from an unknown person to conclude the illegal marriage. After being exploited in various ways, according to our knowledge, due to her psychophysical condition, she was returned to Montenegro," Knežević told CIN-CG.

After arriving in Montenegro, the girl was left to her own devices. She was sleeping in front of the building where her apartment used to be. Then, according to the testimony, she also suffered sexual abuse from different people.

After the CRI became involved in the case, the girl was placed safely and the apartment that belonged to her after the death of her mother and grandmother was returned to her. "We regularly conduct psychological and educational discussions with her, and we provide her with support in the direction of regulating legal documentation. She received an identity card and we are currently helping her to receive disability benefits," Knežević said.

Stories like these about people who live on the margins of our society often remain untold. They usually have no one to stand behind them and help them.

Knežević warns that an additional problem for persons from the Roma and Egyptian population is the unresolved legal and health status.

Due to problems with documents, they rarely use health services

In the "Strategy for the inclusion of Roma and Egyptians for the period from 2021 to 2025", a warning is given about the problem of insufficient frequency of use of health services - almost a third of them rarely use this type of service. Many of them cited the lack of personal documents, which they need to go to the doctor, as the reason.

"For people who are still in the process of obtaining documents to regulate their legal status, the institutions solve cases ad hoc. The lack of access to identity cards greatly affects the chances of obtaining health insurance and puts this group in a very difficult position," the government document states.

Bidaim works all day. He repairs old washing machines and resells iron and other recyclable waste. "Sometimes, when we don't have anything to eat, I go and check the containers. I'm not ashamed, because I have nothing else to do. "Without documents, I can't do anything, not even receive social assistance," he says.

In the house where they live, they do not have the basic conditions for life. Children who can't move are forced to use the non-conditional outdoor bathroom.

Bidaim's family turned to many people for help - the police, the Ministry of Social and Cultural Affairs, various organizations... The institutions did not respond to their requests. So far, the NGO Phiren amenca - Kocačajte sa nama has come to meet them the most, from where they have provided them with wheelchairs in order to make the movement of the children a little easier.

"Because of their unregulated legal status, these children are denied health care. They need a special treatment that is not provided to them", says the executive director of the NGO Phiren amenca for CIN-CG Elvis Berisha.

According to the data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), from the beginning of the application of the new Law on Foreigners, which also deals with the issue of statelessness, ending with October 2022, stateless status was determined for only nine people - six men, one of whom has since died, and three women. For 15 people, this procedure is ongoing.

These figures, however, do not reflect reality. According to the 19 Case Study of the NGO Phiren amenca "Roma without regulated legal status during the covid-2021 pandemic", out of over a thousand people included in the survey, as many as 198 adults and 216 children with unregulated legal status were found on the ground.

"Most often, both parents in the family have an unresolved legal status, but there are situations where the father or mother have status, but their children do not. Although it was clear that the official data did not reflect the real situation, the research revealed the devastating fact that children are at a higher risk of statelessness than adults," the study states.

Montenegro, according to the head of the Directorate for Foreigners, Migration and Readmission in the MUP Dragan Dašić, has mechanisms aimed at finding solutions for existing situations and preventing new cases of statelessness, as well as for the protection of such persons.

"Among them are the Law on Montenegrin Citizenship from 2008, which respected the principles of the European Convention on Citizenship, one of which is the avoidance of statelessness, as well as the recommendations of the Council of Europe on the prevention and reduction of statelessness, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness... ", he states.

Dašić, however, warns that practice has shown that the response to requests for verification of citizenship status from other countries is awaited for quite a long time. "That is why we are breaking the legal deadlines for making decisions". Another problem, points out Dašić, is that even the answers of people without papers who apply are often not precise enough and do not contain the necessary information.

According to him, at the global meeting on statelessness, held in October 2019 in Geneva, our country, among other things, undertook to simplify the procedure for obtaining identification documents. "By introducing a court procedure to determine the time and place of birth of persons who were born in Montenegro outside the health system, as well as by the new practice of entering the register of children born who were abandoned by their mothers or whose mothers do not have identification documents, Montenegro has fully created the conditions for registration in the birth register for all those born in its territory", explains Dašić.

However, in the Strategy on migration and reintegration of returnees in Montenegro, for the period from 2021 to 2025, it is stated that the system of registration in the registry of births, especially when it comes to persons outside the health system (stateless persons), is insufficiently developed.

"Although, in theory, these persons had the right to citizenship of Montenegro or another country with which they have a connection, they could not achieve registration in the registry of births, which made it impossible for them to participate in further proceedings and obtain other identification documents", he states. in this Government document.

A case study by the NGO Phiren amenca from 2021 showed that 30 percent of the total number of respondents did not receive any help from the state during the pandemic. All of them were persons without regulated legal status. "It is estimated that over 30.000 Roma and Roma women are stateless as a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia... The mapping confirmed what the official reports on Montenegro also show - that the heredity of statelessness is on the rise. As RE families generally have a large offspring, almost all children inherit an unregulated legal status. This means that in a few years this problem will grow and the number of stateless adults and children will multiply. Montenegro does not deal with this", warns in this study.

Rights unattainable for undocumented children

"Access to support is very difficult for members of the PWD in this community, especially considering the extensive paperwork they have to deliver to different addresses, and when the socioeconomic characteristics of the community are taken into account, we are talking about additional complications. We particularly emphasize the problem of inaccessibility to health care," says Beriša.

A third of the children do not have health insurance, are not vaccinated, do not have a chosen doctor and do not go regularly for systematic examinations, according to the "Analysis of the needs for the establishment of services for Roma and Egyptian children in Montenegro" from 2020.

According to the analysis, the right to social protection is almost unattainable for these children without citizenship and registration in birth registers. "The parents of those children do not have enough material and non-material capacities to independently regulate the legal status of children in Montenegro. Even when it comes to people who have citizenship, obtaining the necessary documentation is still a problem, due to the low level of education and the absence of services for providing primary legal assistance".

Respondents, who were contacted for the purposes of the analysis, and who are not beneficiaries of material rights through centers for social work, pointed out that 72 percent of them sought help through those institutions, but did not receive it, mostly due to unregulated legal status in Montenegro.

During the last year, nine Roma men and women contacted the Association of Disabled Youth of Montenegro (UMHCG) for help.

"However, except for free legal counseling and accessible transportation, we were not contacted for other support services, for example, for community life support services, Student Counseling Office services or Employment Services, although we know very few Roma with disabilities who have a job," the executive director of UMHCG told CIN-CG Marina Vujacic.

She points out that the development of support services, as well as their availability to PWDs, especially Roma with disabilities, is at a low level or even non-existent.

Vujacic also notices a big problem in the state's relationship with PWDs, which he sees as a homogeneous group. "Their real needs and demands are not examined, which is why the measures most often do not contribute to real progress and improvement of the living conditions of PWDs, especially some groups among them, such as Roma with disabilities. Institutions should work more thoroughly in the field of improving their position. PWDs must be more involved in all processes that concern them and it is not up to the state to assess what is important for them and what is not".

Based on a 2016 study by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, the average life expectancy of the Roma population is 55 years. "For the sake of comparison, the life expectancy of the majority population in Montenegro is 76 years, which means that when someone is born as a Roma and Egyptian in Montenegro, they are expected to live about 20 years less than those who do not belong to this community," he says. in that research.

The twins from the beginning of this text have less and less time. Until now, their parents have waited in vain for the children's pain to lessen at least a little, so that life would be more bearable. There are many more difficult stories in this community, but no one seems to hear them.

Good practices solve the problem of statelessness

According to the United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency's "Study of Good Practices in Addressing Existing Major Statelessness Cases" from August this year, Sri Lanka is cited as one of the best examples of a country that has tackled the long-standing statelessness problem through legal and political reform.

In that study, the case of the statelessness of the Hill Tamils, part of the population that has long been stateless in Sri Lanka, is highlighted. They are descended from laborers brought from India by the British between 1820 and 1840 to work on tea plantations. Most of those residents continued to live and work in those areas, and some were displaced to the northern parts of the country due to the conflicts that engulfed Sri Lanka in the 1980s.

Shortly after Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) gained independence in 1948, the Nationality Act and the Residents of India and Pakistan Act were passed. Both laws discriminated against the Hill Tamils, who, according to the 1964 census, numbered around 168.000.

It was only in 2003 that legal solutions were adopted that provided for the automatic granting of citizenship and the introduction of a simplified procedure, and the problem of the citizenship of the Hill Tamils ​​began to be solved.

In the case study of the NGO Phiren amenca "Roma without regulated legal status during the covid-19 pandemic" from 2021, it is stated that the system in Montenegro left many people without a chance. It was not clear what specific documentation needed to be obtained in order to regulate the legal status. “The 2015 Public Call to Address Legal Status had several shortcomings. Out of over 450 applications, only seven were accepted, while the others were determined to have grounds to resolve their status in another country. This did not provide them with any support, but they were unequivocally rejected. Another shortcoming is insufficient information among citizens. Many did not even know about the call and have no memory of it being in progress," the study states.

According to Elvis Berisha, director of NGO Phiren, Montenegro can solve the issue of statelessness by simplifying the process of obtaining legal status with permanent or temporary residence in the country. "Thus, the current stateless persons would have access to state services (health and social insurance, disability benefits, right to employment). Hereditary statelessness should be stopped and all children should be registered in the birth register immediately after birth, based on the country of birth. "The child should receive the citizenship of the country in which he was born, immediately without the burden of proving and demanding the documentation that the parents must provide," concludes Beriša.