Law or policy reform enabling automatic acquisition of nationality
The Action Plan was revised and updated further through a series of High-Level
Steering Committee Meetings in 2012, and progress was monitored at a fourth meeting
in 2013. At UNHCR’s 2011 Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and
Stateless Persons, Kyrgyzstan pledged to “uphold a policy of prevention and reduction
of statelessness and continue actively working in that direction in accordance with the
National Action Plan (NAP) on Statelessness”. A Citizenship Working Group established
by UNHCR with the participation of government officials, civil society partners and UN
agencies meets regularly to work on the various law reform initiatives included in the
National Action Plan.
3. LEGAL AID AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Since the Government of Kyrgyzstan approached UNHCR to undertake the surveys on
statelessness in the northern and southern regions of the country in 2008, UNHCR has
consistently worked with the Kyrgyz authorities and civil society partners to address
statelessness. For instance, in view of the lack of government resources to deal with the
large number of people with USSR passports, UNHCR has provided capacity support to
the departments of the State Registration Service in the South (Batken, Jalal-Abad and
Osh provinces, where the largest numbers of stateless persons were believed to reside)
and in the North (Chui province, including the country’s capital, Bishkek), as well as to
the Citizenship Commission under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic.
The support given to the Government has been complemented by strong partnerships
with national legal service NGOs in Bishkek and in the south. These NGOs collaborated
with UNHCR on campaigns designed to raise community awareness of the procedures
for determination or acquisition of citizenship and for obtaining documents. NGO
partners provided direct legal assistance to individuals applying for citizenship and
documentation, in particular through leading mobile clinics throughout the country, even
in the most remote regions. The mobile clinics consisted of representatives of territorial
Population and Civil Status Acts Registration Departments of the State Registration
Service (SRS), regional and local Passport and Visa Registration Work Departments
under the State Registration Service, local self-governance bodies, a driver/lawyer’s
assistant and a partner NGO lawyer, the latter person being responsible for coordinating
the mobile team. There were more than 60 mobile teams created both in northern and
southern Kyrgyzstan. UNHCR partner organizations Women Entrepreneurs Support
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