THE PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS IN UKRAINE AND THE WAYS OF ADDRESSING IT them in the continuous circle of endless powerless existence. It is worth noting that considerable attention has been recently paid to the problem of statelessness among Roma. For example, a number of regulatory legal acts was adopted, aiming to address the problems of the Roma national minority19. They raise the question on integration of the Roma national minority in society, namely promoting receipt by the Roma of documents certifying their identity and confirming their citizenship, certificates of registration of civil status, birth certificates, and Ukrainian citizen passports. Along with obvious positive trends, namely the State being interested in addressing the Roma’s problems, these problems have not yet been examined and addressed in full. According to the All-Ukrainian Population Census 200120, 47,600 persons defined their affiliation to the Roma, and 40,000 did not specify their citizenship. The Census data allowed determination of the geographic location of the Roma population in Ukraine: most compactly, the Roma live in Zakarpatya oblast (14,000 persons), Donetsk oblast (4,100 persons), Dnipropetrovsk oblast (4,000 persons), Odessa oblast (4,000 persons), Kharkiv oblast (2,300 persons), and Luhansk oblast (2,200 persons). Sometimes Roma live in their settlements in an isolated way and, by virtue of their traditions, often solve their existing problems according to traditional community rules, usually avoiding any interference from, or even contact with, public authorities. As practice shows, such problems are most often related to the right to land or housing, whereas the statelessness problem receives much less attention. In this aspect, the initiative has been taken by non-governmental organizations that carry out awareness-raising activities among Roma community members concerning their rights and freedoms. The story of Ruslan Ruslan was born in 1974 in Odessa oblast. H is a member of the Roma national minority. Due to a difficult financial situation and because his mother had no identity document, Ruslan was born at home, not in a maternity hospital. Accordingly, Ruslan’s mother did not get any medical document on her child’s birth, and never tried to register his birth later at all. His mother died in 1996, and he does not know his father. 19 See for example http://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/201/2013 20 Results of the 2001 Census are available at http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua 26