How do you put a face to people who don’t exist? Living in the shadows of the world are millions of men, woman and children who belong to no country. Stateless, they are legal ghosts lost in limbo.  By Geraldine Royds

A professional photojournalist, Greg Constantine has devoted his life to documenting the lives of people living on the margins of society.

Since 2005, Greg has been based in Southeast Asia.  In early 2006, he began work on his most recent project, Nowhere People, which focuses on the hardships of stateless ethnic minority groups.

It's estimated that more than 15 million people, in 60 countries are not a recognized person of state. They are stateless for a variety of reasons - racial, ethnic, religious or political persecution or just a quirk of fate. Denied citizenship, they are unable to access legal, civil and economic rights leaving them open to social injustice and human rights abuses.

Greg Constantine’s photographs document the consequences statelessness has on the lives of people who, unwanted and unwelcome, are some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.

In a video he madefor the television network, Al Jazeera, Greg talks about the Rohingya refugees, a Muslim minority who fled their native Myanmar ( Burma) in the 1990’s following brutal persecution by the Burmese Army. With the Bangladeshi government unwilling to resettle them and the abuses continuing at home, they are caught in a no man’s land with limited access to food, shelter and health care.  Although some have been repatriated, many against their will, the remainder live in unbearable conditions in provisional camps in Bangladesh. 

Filipino and Indonesian immigrants make up one-third of the population of Sabah in eastern Malaysia.  Originally welcomed as cheap labour on the palm oil plantations, they increasingly found themselves discriminated against. They were denied access to schools and health care and eventually, strong local resentment led to government crack downs.  With families separated by mass deportations, many children - estimates range between 10,000 and 30,000 - have been left to fend for themselves on the streets. With no knowledge of where their parents are and unwanted by Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, the children of Sabah are condemned to a life of poverty and social exclusion. 

About half a million Urdu speaking Pakistani’s, known as the Bihari’s, have been stranded in Bangladesh since it’s independence in 1971. A prosperous community under Pakistani rule, they were accused of collaborating with the Pakistani regime during the war of Independence. In the political persecution that followed , they lost their land, businesses and jobs and were forced into temporary camps to await repatriation to Pakistan. Thirty five years later, they are still waiting. Living in squalid shanty camps they are still not recognized as citizens of either Pakistani or Bangladesh. 

About 8000 Hmong refugees, 25 percent of them under the age of five, live in a barbed-wire enclosed camp in northern Thailand.  When the refugees first arrived, they lived in the forest on the outskirts of the town working on local farms or trading at the market.  The Thai authorities pressurized local residents to stop helping them and in 2007, they relocated them to a guarded camp where there are no school facilities for the children or job opportunities for the adults.  Refugees who have been forcibly returned to Laos report continued abuses there, intensifying the stress and anxiety of an already traumatized population.  

Greg Constantine’s photographs have been used to support the work of organizations like Refugees International, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

Exhibitions of his work have been held world wide and he has been nominated for several honours including: UNICEF  Photographer of the Year in 2006 and 2007, Amnesty International Human Rights Press Award and  Pictures of the Year International. All photographs © Greg Constantine