Gerard van Leeuwen was originally an education expert, and now helps put the results of academic research into practice. A chance encounter with Kamal and his astonishment about what can happen to one man in his life for the simple reason that he has no birth certificate inspired him to write this book.

This is his attempt to highlight the humanity of stateless people and of refugees, who are often reduced to statistics, case files and quotas, but are in fact just people like you and me.