Iliana and her family are part of a pilot project in Chile that aims to identify people who were registered as the descendants of “transient foreigners,” with to help them confirm their Chilean nationality. © UNHCR/ David Alarcón, November 2016. the right to Chilean nationality applied irrespective of the child’s potential right to another nationality. At the same time, the ban on dual nationality was removed.96 The impact of the 2005 reform was immediate, triggering a sharp increase in Chilean nationality applications from abroad, which rose 29 per cent between 2005 (17,243 applications) and 2006 (22,248 applications) and continuing to rise thereafter.97 At the time, it was estimated that more than 850,000 Chileans and their children were living abroad (half of them in Argentina), and of this number just over 55 per cent had been born in Chile. Among those who were more than 15 years of age, almost 40 per cent either did not hold Chilean nationality or did not know if they did. The percentage was higher for those under 30, especially in those countries that did not have a treaty on double nationality with Chile.98 An unknown number of individuals in this group, especially those not born in other South or North American countries applying jus soli, would have been stateless.99 The 2005 constitutional reforms have greatly reduced the risk of statelessness among children born abroad to Chilean nationals. Chile’s basic jus soli rules already provide a broad degree of protection against statelessness for those born on the territory.100 Nonetheless, the law still does not contain explicit protections against statelessness. Moreover, Chile has not yet acceded to either of the statelessness conventions. In particular, there remains a need for protection for children born abroad without a parent or grandparent born in Chile or who had acquired nationality by naturalization. 96 Article 11, as amended. 97 Santiago Times (Source: El Mercurio), More Foreigners Apply For Chilean Citizenship, 22 June 2009. 98 Enfoque Estadistico, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, Registro de Chilenos en el Exterior Principales Resultados, August 2005. 99 The Committee on the Rights of the Child welcomed the reforms, but noted that children of foreigners without legal residence in Chile remained at risk of statelessness. Concluding observations: Chile, UN Doc. CRC/C/CHL/CO/3, 23 April 2007. 100 The basic jus soli rules are subject to limited exceptions with regard to children born in Chile to parents of transient status (explained in the text above). 22 CAMPAIGN TO END STATELESSNESS WITHIN 10 YE ARS