Country briefing: Statelessness and refugees in Serbia WHY IS STATELESSNESS RELEVANT TO THE REFUGEE RESPONSE IN SERBIA? Although there is no reliable data on statelessness among refugee arrivals in Serbia, according to actors on the ground, populations affected by statelessness are present among arrivals and the most commonly encountered include bidoon from Kuwait, Hazaras from Iran and Rohingya from Myanmar. Some of the key statelessness-related challenges in the Serbian context are highlighted below. Arrival & Registration • • • Nationality problems are not being accurately identified and recorded on arrival. Individuals are often ascribed their country of origin as country of nationality. There is a general lack of understanding of statelessness issues by stakeholders, mainly because Serbia is perceived by all as a transit country and documentation is not required to access basic services in transit camps. The failure to identify or record statelessness, leads to registration with imputed nationality, which can later be difficult to correct. Determination of refugee status • • A lack of clarity about someone’s nationality can impact on the assessment of credibility. The absence of state-funded legal aid and the inconsistent recourse to interpreters means decisions about how nationality status is recorded are rarely challenged. Immigration detention • • Since there is no procedure to determine who is stateless, and a lack of free legal aid, statelessness is missed or not adequately addressed, which may lead to a risk of prolonged and/or arbitrary detention. There appears to be a commonly held belief that individuals can be subject to return procedures and removed without proper determination of nationality status. Child’s right to a nationality • • • 2 Children born in Serbia are exposed to the risk of statelessness. The lack of awareness of the implications of statelessness and gender discrimination in nationality laws leads to inconsistent implementation of the safeguard to grant nationality to otherwise stateless children born in the country. Children’s nationality is routinely registered as the same as their parents on the basis of the parents’ oral statement during the police registration without examining whether a parent can actually confer a nationality to the child.