following categories of people: individuals with stunted growth, the blind, and to victims of the nuclear reactor accident at Chernobyl in 1986.454 Pension supplements are also available to solitary pensioners of 80 years and over; to invalids with 1st and 2nd degree disabilities; persons rehabilitated from unlawful repression on political grounds, and persons infected with HIV/AIDS.455 Stateless persons who can prove they meet any of these criteria, should be able to draw a social pension without a Stateless Person’s Card.456 Social pensions are available in the other three States on a more limited scale. Turkmenistan, for instance, offers benefits to persons with stunted growth,457 to invalids suffering from accidents with radiation (including accidents that took place in other States)458 and to veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan 1979-1989459 and veterans of wars elsewhere.460 Carriers of infection and sexuallytransmitted diseases, however, are disqualified from receiving a social pension.461 Kyrgyzstan offers social pensions in specific cases to cover funeral costs and medical reimbursements.462 Kazakhstan offers social pensions to children under 16 infected by HIV/AIDS or injured by nuclear tests and ecological disaster, to persons rehabilitated after wrongful political imprisonment and to people who worked in the Semipalatinsk testing site from 1963-1992.463 In Turkmenistan,464 stateless children are ordinarily not able to receive a higher education in state institutions. Young people who are invalids, however, do have this entitlement.465 No exclusion clauses attach to this right, and so it may also apply to disabled young persons who are stateless. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan restrict payment of social pensions to persons who contribute obligatory social insurance payments through their place of work.466 In 2009, the majority of stateless in each State are unregistered and working in the informal sector, where labour rights and provisions of social security do not apply. The prohibition on joining groups with political aims in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan makes it hard for them to improve their conditions.467 454 Ibid, Article 15. Ibid, Article 18. 456 In northern Tajikistan, UNHCR interviewed one elderly man with impaired sight and mobility, who said he received a state pension although he had not yet been able to establish his statelessness status. 457 Article 23(8), 2007 Social Security Code of Turkmenistan. 458 Ibid, Article 82. 459 Ibid, Article 131. 460 Ibid, Article 136. 461 Ibid, Article 127(2). 462 Article 10, 2009 Law No 217 ‘On National Social Welfare in Kyrgyzstan’. 463 Richard P Hinz, Asta Zviniene, Anna-Marie Vilamovska, The New Pensions in Kazakhstan: Challenges in Making the Transition, SP Discussion Paper No 0537, World Bank, September 2005, available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOCIALPROTECTION/Resources/SP-Discussion-papers/Pensions-DP/0537.pdf. 464 Please see Sections 5.7 and 5.8 of this report. 465 According to Article 158(4), 2007 Social Security Code of Turkmenistan. 466 Article 12, 2003 Law No 405-VI ‘On Compulsory Social Security in Kazakhstan’; Article 9(2), 2009 Law No 217 ‘On National Social Welfare of Kyrgyzstan’. In Kyrgyzstan, since 1995 a ‘composite monthly benefit’, which is a means-tested payment for indigent families with children, has only been available to people at the place where they are permanently registered. This precludes unregistered stateless from receiving it. Cited in the Food Security Analysis of the Kyrgyz Integrated Household Survey for 2006, 2007 and first quarter of 2008, carried out by the World Food Programme. Stateless elderly persons without documents in Kyrgyzstan told the UNHCR survey that they normally experienced difficulty in arranging and collecting a pension, see UNHCR, A Place to Call Home. The Situation of Stateless Persons in the Kyrgyz Republic: Findings of Surveys Commissioned by the UNHCR, Bishkek, 2009, page 50. 467 In its November 2001 Concluding Observations on Uzbekistan, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern that social security laws in Uzbekistan effectively deprive non-citizens of rights to social security benefits and impose fees that may inhibit access to health and education services. It urged that all children within Uzbek jurisdiction enjoy all the rights set out in the Convention without discrimination, see CRC/C/15/Add 167. 455 ~ 69 ~