Status Revoked: Slovenia’s ‘Erased’ Recall Long Struggle for Justice

Twenty-nine years ago, Mirjana Ucakar discovered that she was no longer a resident of Slovenia - the Yugoslav republic in which she was born, grew up, went to school and worked.

Ucakar also found out that suddenly, she no longer had any of the basic rights that other permanent residents of Slovenia enjoyed.

"It was terrible, I was devastated… I didn't go anywhere anymore, I kept a low profile," Ucakar told BIRN.

Years of struggle to obtain Slovenian documents followed, as she lived in fear that she might be deported.

Ucakar is one of the 25,671 citizens of former Yugoslav countries that Slovenia - after declaring independence from Yugoslavia and changing its legislation - deleted without warning from its register of permanent residents on February 26, 1992.

The documents that had been issued to them in Slovenia, when it was part of Yugoslavia, became invalid and they lost their right to residency. Many found themselves at a centre for foreigners awaiting deportation.

With the loss of permanent resident status, some people lost jobs that required residence permits, as well as health insurance and other benefits.

Since 1999, several important court decisions have been handed down and laws passed that have belatedly restored rights to the so-called 'erased' people. After years of campaigning for justice, many of them received compensation from the Slovenian state, and thousands have been granted citizenship and permanent residence again.

Ucakar said that what happened back in the early 1990s is rarely discussed these days because the issue is considered closed.

"There is no more talk about it, here and there it is mentioned as a distant injustice that happened at the beginning of Slovenia's independence,"...