Cambodia

Ethnic Vietnamese within Cambodia face difficulties acquiring birth certificates and nationality for themselves and their children. Official denial of citizenship to Vietnamese in Cambodia has been occurring since the implementation of the 1934 Nationality Law which established jus sanguinis citizenship. In 2019, CEDAW expressed grave concern about the Royal Government of Cambodia’s 2017 campaign to revoke identification documents (including birth certificates) of more than 70,000 persons, most of whom were of Vietnamese origin. The destruction of documents under the Khmer Rouge regime also means that many Vietnamese do not have the paperwork to prove ancestry or prior family residence in the country. Government-issued residence cards do not allow for the children of ethnic Vietnamese to obtain birth certificates and other forms of identity documentation, thus reproducing statelessness across generations. The denial of birth certificates to children of ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia leads them to live in poor and segregated conditions, without access to essential services such as healthcare and education.