CHAPTER 6 MONTENEGRO. STATELESS FAMILY LIVING IN LIMBO Although born in Montenegro, these sisters’ parents, who fled conflict in other parts of the Balkans, lack identity documents and are unable to get citizenship for themselves or the girls. © UNHCR/MIOMIR LABAN In 2016, progress continued to be made to reduce the number of stateless people through acquisition or confirmation of nationality. A reported 60,800 stateless people in 31 countries acquired nationality during the year, with significant reductions happening in Côte d’Ivoire, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Thailand. In the Philippines, for example, a tripartite registration exercise by UNHCR and the Governments of Indonesia and the Philippines UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2016 enabled more than 4,000 people of Indonesian descent in the Philippines to confirm Philippine and/ or Indonesian nationality. In Tajikistan, close to 7,500 people had their nationality confirmed. 69 See: https://www.unece.org/publications/2020recomm.html. Figure 20 | Number of countries reporting statistics on stateless persons | 2004-2016 Number of countries Statistics and information on the situation of stateless populations also can be gathered through population censuses. When the Global Action Plan was published in 2014, 112 out of 142 national population censuses undertaken since 2005 for which the United Nations possesses questionnaires included a question on nationality. Of these, fewer than 25 per cent included a pre-coded option for census takers to record the responses of those who identified themselves as stateless. It is therefore important to include questions relating to nationality in the 2020 round of population and housing censuses. The Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2020 Censuses of Population and Housing 69 is a first step in this regard, but further efforts are needed. UNHCR operations are collaborating with statisticians and relevant authorities to include questions in upcoming censuses that will assist in identifying the number of stateless people in that country. UNHCR encourages all States to follow these examples. 22 19 54 48 05 06 20 21 72 17 14 49 21 54 58 08 09 65 64 10 11 19 16 17 18 75 77 77 75 13 14 15 16 17 11 30 04 07 12 Countries with reliable data Countries with known populations without reliable data 49