Staff from the NGO Sana Sezim help Aizhan, a stateless person in South Kazakhstan, to receive identity documents which will enable her to
access medical services and continue her education. © UNHCR/Frederic Noy
Implementation of the Global Action Plan
In line with Action 1, Resolve existing major
situations of statelessness, within the first year
of Kazakhstan’s country-wide statelessness
identification and documentation campaign, more
than 6,000 persons of undetermined nationality
were registered, out of which close to 5,000 have
now been documented, 3,400 became citizens of
Kazakhstan and 1,600 were accorded statelessness
status. To raise further public awareness of the
campaign, coordination meetings and press briefings
were held in eight regions of the country. The
campaign is conducted by the Migration Services
Committee of the Ministry of Interior, UNHCR and
civil society partners.
With regard to Actions 1 and 8, Issue nationality
documentation to those with entitlement to
it, from 23 to 25 November, the Department of
Justice of The Philippines reviewed the nationality
status of a group of people of Indonesian descent
with undetermined nationality. This resulted in a
determination of nationality of 123 people to either
be Filipino, Indonesian or having dual citizenship.
UNHCR is coordinating the effort between the
Governments of the Philippines and Indonesia to
issue nationality documentation to these individuals.
In line with Action 2, Ensuring that no child is born
stateless, the court of first instance of Dabou, Côte
d’Ivoire, issued a judicial decision which clarifies
that individuals who were born to unknown parents
and found as a child on the territory can obtain
the nationality of Côte d’Ivoire even if a nationality
application is submitted in adulthood. This marks
an important development in case law as previously
nationality was only granted to foundlings where
the application was submitted when the person
in question was still a child. Côte d’Ivoire acceded
to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of
Statelessness in 2013 which require States Parties to
grant nationality to stateless foundlings.
UNHCR > The Campaign to End Statelessness | October – December 2021 Update
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