III. a child or a stateless person, being under custody or trusteeship, - by application of the custodian or trustee having citizenship of the Kyrgyz Republic. 24. Article 17 provides that a child without citizenship who is adopted by a Kyrgyz citizen or is taken under the custody or trusteeship of a Kyrgyz citizen will be granted citizenship. Exchange of Soviet passports for Kyrgyz passports 25. All USSR passport holders in Kyrgyzstan, including those who lost them, who had USSR citizenship and have lived in Kyrgyzstan for 5 years or more and have not accepted foreign citizenship, are automatically recognized as citizens of the country in accordance with paragraph 2 of Article 5 of the Kyrgyz Citizenship Law.16 26. The Government is commended for having taken positive steps towards resolving the statelessness cases. In 2014, the Kyrgyz Republic started a “door-to-door” Campaign, the first pilot in the Central Asian region, with civil society partnership supported by UNHCR on registration and documentation of stateless persons. During the Campaign in Kyrgyzstan a total of 13,707 stateless persons were identified and 13,447 persons were granted citizenship and obtained proper documentation. As of 1 May 2019, there were 258 pending cases. 27. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, on 4 July 2019, announced that Kyrgyzstan brought its stateless population down from over 13,000 to zero in the last five years.17 28. This group comprised people who could or did not renew their Soviet identity documents after Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan became independent states in 1991 (they had until 2003 to do so). The majority of this group has resided in Kyrgyzstan for several years and maintain close familial, social and cultural ties with Kyrgyzstan. They are now able to enjoy the right to a nationality. "Border Brides" 29. The so-called "Border Brides" of Kyrgyzstan are women from Uzbekistan who married ethnic Uzbek men in southern Kyrgyzstan and do not possess nationality documentation of either country.18 Until recently, there was no legislation in Kyrgyzstan to assist these "Border Brides" and without valid documentation they could not return to Uzbekistan.19 30. In 2014, Kyrgyz Presidential regulation No. 174 with Regulations #23-2 provided an option and access to simplified procedures to acquire Kyrgyz citizenship (without requiring a period of residence, proof of income and language proficiency) for stateless persons and foreign spouses (without valid passports). This was primarily due to civil society advocacy for changes and improving legislation to address statelessness, which opened access to the naturalisation of a large number of stateless persons (the so-called "amnesty campaign"). 16 https://www.legislationline.org/documents/id/20125. UNHCR, Kyrgyzstan ends statelessness in historic first (2019): https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2019/7/5d1da90d4/kyrgyzstan-ends-statelessness-historic-first.html. 18 EurasiaNet.org, 'Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan: Stateless "Border Brides" Caught in Between' (online, 14 February 2012). 19 EurasiaNet.org, 'Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan: Stateless "Border Brides" Caught in Between' (online, 14 February 2012). 17 6