Second-class citizen

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A second-class citizen is a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, outlaws or criminals, second-class citizens have limited legal rights, civil rights and socioeconomic opportunities, and are often subject to mistreatment or neglect at the hands of their putative superiors. However, they are different from "less-than-whole citizens",^[1] as second-class citizens are often disregarded by the law or have it used to harass them (see police misconduct and racial profiling). Systems with de facto second-class citizenry are generally regarded as violating human rights.^[2][3]

Typical conditions facing second-class citizens include but are not limited to:

• disenfranchisement (a lack or loss of voting rights)
• limitations on civil or military service (not including conscription in every case)
• restrictions on language, religion, education
• lack of freedom of movement and association
• limitations on weapons ownership
• restrictions on marriage
• restrictions on gender identity and expression
• restrictions on housing
• restrictions on property ownership

The category is normally unofficial and mostly academic, and the term itself is generally used as a pejorative and governments will typically deny the existence of a second class within the polity. As an informal category, second-class citizenship is not objectively measured; however, cases such as the American South under segregation, aborigines in Australia prior to 1967, apartheid in South Africa, women in Saudi Arabia under Saudi law, Dalits in India and Nepal, and Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland during the parliamentary era are all examples of groups that have been historically described as having second-class citizenry.

A resident alien or foreign national, and children in general, fit most definitions of second-class citizen. This does not mean that they do not have any legal protections, nor do they lack acceptance by the local population.^[4] A naturalized citizen carries essentially the same rights and responsibilities as any other citizen (a possible exception being ineligibility for certain public offices), and is also legally protected.

Relationship with citizenry class

Examples

• Proposals for a U.S. guest worker program—which would provide legal status to and admit foreign workers to the U.S., but provide no path to citizenship for them—has been criticized on the ground that such a policy would creating second-class non-citizens.^[5][6][7]
• Latvian non-citizens constitute a group similar to second-class citizens.^[8] Although they are not considered foreigners (they hold no other citizenship, have Latvian IDs), they have reduced rights compared to full citizens. For example, non-citizens are not eligible to vote or hold public office. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance has described their status as making "people concerned feel like “second-class citizens”.^[9] Estonian non-citizens are in a similar position.
• New Zealanders receive automatically a "Special Category Visa" upon entering Australia, which presents no pathway to Australian citizenship. New Zealanders are denied access to Centrelink, to name just one of the services. This means that if, for example, a New Zealand person came to Australia to live with his or her Australian spouse, and that spouse committed domestic violence upon them, the New Zealander could not then turn to Centrelink to provide them with funds to leave the abusive spouse.
• Burakumin (部落民) is a designation of Japanese Second-class status meaning the people who are from the place called "buraku." Buraku basically means a village or small district. For a long time, people have discriminated against people from "buraku" even though they belong to the same race, and there are no differences between ordinal Japanese people and people who are called burakumin. It is not clear when and why this started, but it is said that it was most common in Edo period.^[10] They are often called "eta" (穢多) or "hinin" (非人) meaning polluted or not a human. Even though in Meiji 4 (1871), this discrimination was officially ended by kaihourei (解放令), many people resisted it and continued treating them as burakumin. Today, fewer people are discriminate towards burakumin, however, the term burakumin is still recognized as a discriminating word while there are certain amount of recent young generations who do not even know the term and idea of burakumin. Also, in some cases, people still happen to be discriminated especially when they get a job or get married.^[11] These cases often reported as problems.
• Natives of many colonized lands in the past could be considered second-class citizens compared to the colonists, however as generations pass on they become "Less-than-whole citizens" unless dramatic citizenship rights are ensured.^[1]
• Language: Citizens of countries which have more than one official language where one language is more prevalent than the other. The citizen of the minority language seeks assistance at an embassay of the citizen but is unable to obtain service immediately in their native language due to lack of personelle who speak the minority language. Same situation can apply at border entry ports where immigration staff do not have the language skills to speak to the citizen in their native tongue. Canada is a good example where this happens to Canadian citizens whose native language is French despite officially English and French having equal status.

See also

• Blacklisting
• Involuntary unemployment
• Loss of rights due to felony conviction
• "Less-than-whole" citizens

References