political mandate, political parties, or trade unions.412 Stateless persons, like all foreigners in the four States, are ineligible to vote or stand for election.413 There are few civil society organisations in Turkmenistan, but its social security law does make provision for a network of ‘Public Associations of Invalids’. Their mandate is to protect the medical welfare of members and to help improve their enjoyment of social and labour rights.414 From UNHCR’s reading of the law, it may be construed that these public associations are also open to documented and undocumented stateless persons with physical disabilities. With UNDP in 2009, Turkmen disability associations ran a programme for people with visual and hearing impairment called “Making the Millennium Goals Disability-Inclusive”.415 Opportunities for community mobilization are limited, however, since the registration of non-governmental organizations is complex and requires extensive documentation. Each State guarantees freedom of conscience to the foreigners on its territory, including the people it recognises as stateless, and each outlaws hate speech on religious grounds.416 There is a variety of religious belief among the registered and unregistered stateless in the region. UNHCR does not know what opportunity they have to exercise their religious observances in practice. In meetings with the stateless throughout the region, no one raised this as their most pressing problem. 6.3 Employment The transition from the administrative-command economy of Soviet times towards an era of mixed economies has spawned a vast informal sector. This has been the subject of research in each State. A World Bank study in 2003 described the informal sector as “the best and possibly the only survival strategy in the context of difficult transitions”.417 Stateless persons who are undocumented, engage mostly in this sector because they are not legally able to access jobs in the formal economy. There has been no study of the socio-economic profile of stateless persons in the region. The three surveys in Kyrgyzstan by UNHCR’s implementing partners constitute the most probing research to date. The first two, carried out in the north of Kyrgyzstan in 2007 and 2008 among migrants to the Chuy region, collected information on 5,588 persons, some of whom were found to be stateless. Of those interviewed, over 42% of the adults were doing casual day-labour; 14% were cultivating plants and 10% engaged in cattle-breeding. Some 214 married couples said they had no constant source of income. Ninety said they regularly put together an income from three different sources and one from nine sources.418 In Tajikistan, stateless persons told UNHCR they also largely work for themselves in the private sector. No clear data emerged from Turkmenistan. Because they have greater problems finding formal employment, undocumented stateless persons are more likely to be exposed to extreme poverty than other parts of the population. Kyrgyzstan’s National 412 Article 15, 1997 Law No 500 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Tajikistan, as amended in 2009; 1995 Article 12, 1995 Law No 2337 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kazakhstan; Article 14, 1993 Law No 1296 XII ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kyrgyzstan. 413 Article 21, 1993 Law No 1296-XII ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kyrgyzstan; Article 19, 1995 Law No 2337 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kazakhstan; Article 22, 1997 Law No 500 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Tajikistan, as amended in 2009. 414 Articles 149-158, 2007 Law on Social Security of Turkmenistan. 415 United Nations Development Programme in Turkmenistan, UN Brings Forward New Plans to Support People with Disabilities at Round Table, 3-4 December 2009, available at www.undptkm.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=618&Itemid=43. 416 Article 16, 2007 Law No 500 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Tajikistan, as amended in 2009; Article 16, 1993 Law ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Turkmenistan, as amended in 2011; Article 13, 1995 Law No 2337 ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kazakhstan; Article 15, 1993 Law No 1296-XII ‘On the Legal Status of Foreigners’ in Kyrgyzstan. 417 Yoon, Reilly, Krstic and Bernabè, A Study of Informal Labour Market Activity in the CIS-7, World Bank, 2003. 418 UN High Commissioner for Refugees, A Place to Call Home. The Situation of Stateless persons in the Kyrgyz Republic: Findings of Surveys Commissioned by the UNHCR, UNHCR Bishkek, 2009, pages 47 and 62. A third survey, of stateless persons in southern Kyrgyzstan, was carried out between September 2008 and January 2009 and did not ask respondents about their sources of income. ~ 64 ~