Human Rights And Statelessness I N P E N I N S U L AR M AL AYS I A Categories of stateless populations Number of studies (6) Indigenous peoples 4 (7) Refugees 4 (8) Undocumented persons who do not fall into the other categories 5 Statelessness in Peninsular Malaysia Statelessness in Peninsular Malaysia is largely conceptualised through a policy or legal lens, and is usually presented through qualitative case studies of the different stateless populations in Peninsular Malaysia. Most rely on secondary data while only one study collected primary data, indicating a lack of primary data, which includes lived experiences of stateless persons. The most comprehensive qualitative study to date (Liew, 2019) explains the various definitions of statelessness under international laws and situates Malaysia within the context of international human rights conventions. It identifies the causes and consequences of statelessness for six stateless populations through collecting primary data via interviews: persons with long-standing residence since pre-independence and their descendants; people who lack documentation, abandoned children or foundlings and adopted children; children of mixed marriages or alternative families and cases where children were born out of wedlock; indigenous persons; refugees and children of migrant workers. They also offer solutions and pathways to citizenship for these stateless populations who do have ‘genuine and effective links’ to Malaysia. This is the only study thus far that collects its own primary data and that focuses on all eight stateless populations that we are studying. Tamara J. Duraisingam (2016) takes a similar approach but uses secondary data to analyse four stateless populations in Malaysia – the Orang Asli, the Indian community, Rohingya refugees living in Peninsular Malaysia, and the street children in Sabah. Another study by the same author (2016a) analyses the causes and consequences of statelessness for the same four populations, detailing the factors that lead to the cause of their de facto statelessness along with the grave consequences of their statelessness. 22