Acquisition of nationality through naturalization Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) to ensure the recognition of the legal identity of all women and children in ASEAN. To address statelessness and support civil status registration for the vulnerable and hard-to-reach population groups, Viet Nam as a member state of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime – as part of which the issues relating to the civil registration were addressed, especially during the Sixth Ministerial Conference held in Bali, Indonesia on 23 March 2016 - has taken part in implementing the Pilot Project for the Bali Process Civil Registration Assessment Toolkit. The Toolkit is developed to help the government to assess and improve the national civil registration system in order to record all the births, deaths and marriages that occur in the territory among the populations of concern. Viet Nam’s efforts and experiences in the Pilot Project have been a significant contribution to improving the Toolkit and served as lessons learned for other member states of the Bali Process. Policy reform to reduce statelessness among former Cambodian refugees According to the Vietnamese nationality law at the time, applicants for naturalization were required to produce the following: proof of renunciation of foreign nationality, a birth certificate, a curriculum vitae, a judicial background certificate, a certificate of proficiency in the Vietnamese language, a certificate of continuous residence in Viet Nam for a certain period, information on the applicant’s domicile/occupation/income, and funds in payment of a processing fee. But most of the stateless former Cambodian refugees could not meet these requirements. Having fled Cambodia more than three decades earlier, this population had become aged; many were also illiterate and indigent. Given the circumstances under which they fled Cambodia, most did not have personal documentation, such as birth certificates. The greatest obstacle, however, was the requirement for proof of renunciation of foreign nationality. Some individuals had attempted to approach the Cambodian Government on this point. Although Cambodia did not recognize the former refugees as Cambodian citizens, it refused to issue documents confirming that they had relinquished their former nationality, as required by the Vietnamese law. U N H C R > G P P A C T I O N 1 : R E S O LV I N G E X I S T I N G M A J O R S I T U AT I O N S O F S TAT E L E S S N E S S 59