JANUARY – JUNE 2025 North Macedonia has become the first country in the region to resolve all known cases of statelessness resulting from the dissolution of SFR Yugoslavia. ©Government of the Republic of North Macedonia. In May, Kenya’s parliamentary committee submitted the draft Amendment Bill to the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act to the Attorney General, Kenya Law Reform Commission and Immigration Department for further inputs. This initiative is part of ongoing efforts to reform the law to enable continuous registration of stateless persons in Kenya. With UNHCR’s advocacy and partner support, in the Dominican Republic, 22 persons obtained a Dominican birth certificate, of which 11 also held a Dominican identity and electoral card. They are the first among 799 naturalized individuals to gain formal recognition of their Dominican nationality – a process which started 11 years ago – paving the way for others to complete the process as well. Action 2. Ensure that no child is born stateless In Iran, the National Organization for Civil Registration (NOCR) reported that 31,032 Iranian ID booklets (Shenasnameh) had been issued to children of Iranian mothers and non-Iranian fathers since the adoption of the 2019 Nationality UNHCR / DIP Statelessness Section Law in March. Of these, 4,934 were issued between March 2024 and March 2025. In April, Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court ruled that Article 65 of the Marriage and Family Code was unconstitutional because it failed to provide alternative methods for determining a child’s nationality when parental information is unavailable. The Court emphasized that nationality must not be determined solely from parents’ documentation or identity when such information is missing, addressing a legal gap that potentially allowed children to remain stateless. UNHCR advocated for this decision to minimize the risk of childhood statelessness. The Government of Burkina Faso submitted a draft Code on Persons and the Family to the transitional legislative assembly for review. In January, UNHCR participated in hearing on the draft code, presenting recommendations to prevent statelessness and urging alignment with the 1961 Statelessness Convention. 2