Published: 08 July 2015 г.
Bishkek, 2 July 2015 – The Representation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Kyrgyz Republic, the State Registration Service, and the Office of the Mayor of Bishkek launched a joint campaign to reduce statelessness in Bishkek city. The campaign is a continuation of the registration and documentation effort that began last year in the rural areas of the country.
“Persons without citizenship encounter difficulties with municipal registration. Consequently, they do not have access to social services,” said Aygul Ryskulova, Vice-Mayor of Bishkek. “This creates significant problems for the city.”
Bishkek is a complex urban area that consists of 48 residential communities. In the course of the next three months, twelve multifunctional teams comprising lawyers, passport desk officials, and municipal authorities will be stationed throughout the city. These teams will provide legal aid to stateless and undocumented persons, and will assist project beneficiaries with obtaining documentation.
In 2014, UNHCR and the Kyrgyz government launched a nationwide campaign to address the remaining cases of statelessness. The project partners created, trained, and fully equipped a number of multinational teams that serve as mobile passport desks. These teams are able to travel anywhere in the country in order to provide legal aid to persons in need. Since the launch of the field operations in June 2014, the teams have covered Batken, Jalalabad, Osh, Talas, and Chuy provinces. As of today, more than 7,500 persons have been registered under the project, of whom over 3,200 have already received citizenship or documentation. Next year the project will continue in Naryn and Issyk-Kul provinces. By the end of 2016, the mobile teams will have covered the entire territory of Kyrgyzstan.
“Statelessness or the lack of valid documentation precludes individuals from exercising their fundamental civil and political rights. These persons remain without access to health care, education, legal employment, property ownership, and voting registration,” said Maki Shinohara, UNHCR Representative. “Statelessness perpetuates from one generation unto another, as stateless parents give birth to stateless children. The cycle must be broken.”
The Kyrgyz Republic is closely familiar with the statelessness phenomenon. In the course of the last decade the Kyrgyz government has been taking active steps to reduce statelessness in the country. From 2009 to 2014, as a result of registration and documentation work, the State Registration Service confirmed Kyrgyz citizenship of more than 65,000 Soviet passport holders. In the same period, the government granted citizenship to further 1,630 persons falling under UNHCR’s statelessness mandate
“The State Registration Service, as the executive agency responsible for civil registration and documentation, puts much effort into prevention and reduction of statelessness in the Kyrgyz Republic”, said Duishon Satybaldiev, Director, Department for Registration of Population, State Registration Service. “Since the creation of the Service we have closely cooperated with UNHCR, and together we have taken a number of effective measures that address the issue of statelessness in the country”.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees leads and co-ordinates humanitarian action to protect refugees, asylum-seekers, and stateless persons in the Kyrgyz Republic. UNHCR provides assistance to state authorities in establishing fair and efficient asylum systems, and in preventing and reducing statelessness. UNHCR also assists communities affected by the inter-ethnic clashes of June 2010.