perceived tension between state sovereignty in determining who belongs and the right of every person to a nationality . He further stressed the need to use the collective wisdom, norms, mechanisms and tools that has been built over generations to combat statelessness. He suggested that in order to perceive root causes of statelessness, there is a need to question if there has been a collective failure to do what we are obliged to do by law, by institutional mandate and by our basic humanity. Ms. Diana Gichengo, Kenya Human Rights Commission, started her presentation by emphasizing her own experience as a person coming from a majority ethnic community in Kenya, that was instructive to guide her journey to understand that statelessness is a minority issue. She stated that discrimination against minorities is often concealed in certain laws and policies, that have gaps which are most evident when it comes to implementation. Minorities are often deprived of nationality without having any safeguards to be able to remedy the situation. Technical or administrative requirements are often tailored to the needs of majority communities, and are often difficult to be met by minority and nomadic communities. Another root cause for statelessness was considered to be difficulties accessing birth registration, national identity cards and passports for minorities, in the result leaving people stateless, without state protection and unable to enjoy any fundamental rights and freedoms. She mentioned the importance of ensuring the legal identity for all, without any form of discrimination. Diana Gichengo emphasized the need to ensure nationality at birth in order to combat statelessness. She further noted that the fact that stateless people have no registration hinders their access to human rights and basic services. Stateless people do not have access to any forum where they can raise their voce, they do not have access to health services, they face difficulties proving their existence. She also referred to Sustainable Development Goals, and particularly target 16.9 as a useful tool for states to ensure legal identity for stateless persons. She referred to the African Union Draft Protocol on Right to a Nationality and Eradication of Statelessness in Africa, calling upon the member states of the African Union to adopt and ratify it. Ms. Olena Vaidalovych, Charitable Organization "Roma Women Fund "Chiricli" stated that discrimination is both a cause and a consequence of statelessness. She contributed to the discussion through an example of her own Roma community in Ukraine which faces direct and multiple discrimination not only in the documentation procedure but also in accessing fundamental rights and freedoms such as education. She noted that Roma women who are stateless find themselves subjected to triple discrimination-as a woman, as a Roma woman and as a stateless person. She further noted that absence of registration documents prevents Roma women from enjoying economic and social rights, deprives children from the enjoyment of the right to education and ultimately makes it impossible for them to obtain higher education and employment. Women without documents cannot receive birth certificates for their children and, consequently, this leads to transgenerational statelessness. The importance of ensuring access to documentation in order to determine the nationality, as well as allocating sufficient funds for this purpose, was also emphasized. She suggested collecting comprehensive gender disaggregated official data on the number of Roma, as well as on their socio-economic situation. Olena Vaidalovych highlighted the need to ensure that instances of violence, murder and hate attacks against Roma are effectively investigated and redressed. She also attached a great importance to the engagement of affected community in decision and policy making. 5