Photo Release

Ending statelessness: Sen. Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III leads the Committee on Foreign Relations' virtual hearing on the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness Friday, December 10, 2021. Pimentel, chairperson of the foreign relations panel, noted that the country is a signatory to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and already has a "robust" policy network on statelessness. But statelessness remains a problem, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights identifying at least 4.3 million persons as stateless. "It is said that statelessness is an invisible problem because stateless persons often remain unseen and unheard...But we will try to reverse that today by looking at their status and listening to their plight," Pimentel said. (Screengrab/Senate PRIB)