By Mai Nguyen
This is second of a two-part article. For part one, click HERE.
When I share with others about the precarious legal status of ethnic Vietnamese people living in Cambodia, people usually ask, “What’s next? What does the future hold?” I believe we can start examining potential answers to that question by looking at the future of these communities – the children. What is it like to be a stateless child?
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defines a child as those below 18 years old, and Cambodia has a similar definition. While the CRC guarantees many more fundamental rights to a child, this blog post focuses on the right to a birth certificate, a name, nationality, and education. Article 7 emphasizes the right to a birth certificate and a name, “The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality,” especially when not doing so would render a child stateless. Article 8.1 provides, “States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference.” Article 28 focuses on the child’s right to education: primary schools should be mandatory, and State parties should strive to ensure that all schools level are freely available to all children. Cambodia ratified the CRC in 1992.
Birth Certificate
During my field trips in Cambodia, I visited four communities, each having approximately 90-100 families. On average, out of 100 families, about 1-2 families were able to obtain birth certificates for their children. The fortunate families are all mixed-marriage families in which one spouse is Cambodian and/or already holds Cambodian citizenship. Unfortunately, no family consisting of ethnic Vietnamese spouses could obtain birth certificates for their children. They only had a Confirmation of Birth issued to them at the local hospital in which the child was born. While the confirmation document states that the child was born on Cambodian soil, it has no legal effect in proving that the child’s birthplace is indeed inside Cambodia.
Name
If a child is ethnic Vietnamese, the child must have a Vietnamese name. Parents are not allowed to give their children a Cambodian name, unless one spouse is Cambodian. This requirement is not written in any law, but the parents must provide their children’s names when adding the children to the family’s residence book, and they were instructed by local authorities of that unwritten rule. The local authorities reasoned that these children are “Vietnamese” and not “Cambodian.” In fact, when the child is of age to apply for a resident card, their nationality is listed as “Vietnamese” on the card, an entirely incorrect classification given that they in fact have no citizenship. Cambodian nationality law also provides that applicants applying to naturalize as Cambodians must have a Cambodian name. It is unclear whether these ethnic Vietnamese, if they become eligible for naturalization, can obtain a Cambodian name.
Nationality
A relevant document for naturalization consideration is residence books. Not all residence books are created equal, however. Upon birth, parents must add their child’s name to the family’s residence book. Two types of residence books exist. Families of ethnic Vietnamese have a residence book that list all members of the household. This book has no legal effect other than functioning as a record for the authorities to check on population statistics. If the household is Cambodian-Vietnamese, the family has an additional residence book, which only lists the Cambodian-citizenship spouse and the children’s information. Anyone who is listed in the second residence book can be a legal heir to the family’s property. For example, if a mixed family has three children and a Cambodian father, the first residence book lists 5 members (parents + 3 children), whereas another book only lists 4 members – the Cambodian parent + 3 children. This means that the ethnic Vietnamese citizen spouse has no right to own or inherit any of the family’s property.
As for mixed families with children fortunate enough to get Cambodian citizenship, they have shared that their children had to essentially erase any possible traits of their Vietnamese heritage, for fear of discrimination and exclusion at school or in the workplace. As for children of ethnic Vietnamese families, the Cambodian government mandates that they apply for a permanent resident card if they wish to eventually naturalize as citizens. The authorities informed them that they must carry a valid card for at least 8 years before they may be eligible to apply for naturalization. Each permanent resident card is valid for 2 years, but the existence of this card is not found in any body of laws. The card does not offer any other benefits to the applicant (e.g., education, employment, healthcare), other than the promise to potentially allow them to apply for naturalization after 8 years (first card + 3 renewal). It is important to note that the decision to grant naturalization applications is still entirely discretionary even if the applicant meets all requirements (e.g. Khmer proficiency, adaptation to Cambodian culture, etc.). The renewal fee for one permanent card is 250,000 Cambodian Riel (KHR), approximately $61 USD, meaning that each person must pay 1,000,000 KHR ($244 USD) to renew the card four times. Failure to renew the cards results in a fine of 1,250,000 KHR ($305) for each violation. The fee for a naturalization application is 4,099,000 KHR ($1,000 USD) per person. I kept wondering how the people could possibly afford those fees.
Education
For a long time, children without birth certificates could not go to public schools. However, thanks to many advocates’ resilience, along with non-profit and NGO’s efforts, stateless children without birth certificates can now attend public schools up until grade 6, provided that they have the following documents: confirmation of birth, residence book, parents’ permanent resident cards, and a recommendation letter issued by the village chief. In practice, ensuring that the children can attend school is still challenging. First, after being evicted from the water, most communities are located quite far away from the nearest public schools. With the parents having to work pretty much from dawn till dusk, bringing the children back and forth from school is also a challenge. The roads to the school are also bumpy, making it hard and sometimes, even dangerous for walking. As a result, most children resort to studying at the village’s private “school,” which usually are just classrooms teaching them basic command of Vietnamese and Khmer. Teachers are volunteers from the communities who charge the students’ parents small tuition fees. Even then, most children cannot make it to class regularly because sometimes they must go down to the water and help their parents with work. Still, it is great progress that the children can at least theoretically attend school until grade 6. The next battle will be to fight for access to education beyond grade 6.
On the last day of my field trip, I was able to meet some children, as it was a Sunday. I walked into the village, and they spotted me from afar, yelling, “Visitor! Visitor!” I met a group of girls, who were timid and shy at first. We chatted for a few minutes, and they felt comfortable enough to invite me into their houses. I found out that they all went to the village’s private school and were currently studying Khmer and Vietnamese’s alphabets. I asked them what they did in their free time, and they told me they liked to do role-play games, in which one would be a teacher and the rest, students. Naturally, I volunteered to become their student, and they taught me how to read the Khmer alphabet, as well as doing math (numbers are not written in Arabic numbers but are in Khmer characters). I also showed them how to read UDHR Article 15: “Everyone has the right to a nationality.” They struggled with pronouncing the word “nationality” (“quốc tịch”) because it was a rather tough word.
I then asked for their favorite food. One girl said, “I like strawberries!” I asked her why and if she had it. She said, “I have never eaten a strawberry, but it looks so good” (pointing to a strawberry printed on her school backpack). Another exclaimed, “I want to be a teacher when I grow up! I want to teach other children Khmer and Vietnamese language, but maybe Vietnamese language, because that’s my parents’ languages.” Afterwards, I decided to buy them some snacks. They were hesitant at first because they said, “We don’t want to use all of your money.” After guaranteeing them that I did have money, they rushed me to the snack shop at the entrance of the village, and each proceeded to pick only one snack: some picked crackers, another boba teas, and another dried instant noodles. I noticed that one girl really wanted boba tea as well, so I asked her why she did not order one. She said, “We already got so much. I am afraid you don’t have enough money.” I assured her and ordered her boba tea – she was over the moon. These children are the very future of the communities, and I hope that someday, that girl’s dream of becoming a teacher can be realized. Or, simpler yet, she can finally taste a strawberry to see what an amazing fruit it is!
Here is a short video compilation of my field trip:
This post was written by a student at Regent University School of Law. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of Regent University, Regent Law School, or the Center for Global Justice.