THE PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS IN UKRAINE AND THE WAYS OF ADDRESSING IT
Citizens and Stray Children as amended on 21 December 201023. In particular,
the Law states that registration of homeless persons at their place of residence
or stay is carried out by relevant institutions for homeless persons – recording
centers established by local governments or executive authorities. To obtain a
passport, such persons should apply to recording centers for homeless persons,
with a number of documents a listed in Article 1.2 of the Procedure of execution
and issuance of a Ukrainian citizen passport24: 1) application for a passport;
2) birth certificate; 3) two photos; 4) document on payment of a state fee; 5)
certificate of registration of the person as a citizen of Ukraine or of acquisition
of citizenship of Ukraine, and, if required, other documents specified in Article
5 of the Law of Ukraine on Nationality of Ukraine; 6) certificate of a homeless
person registration issued by a relevant recording center for homeless persons.
Reality shows, however, that such persons quite often don’t have, and are not
able to obtain, all the documents due to long-standing homelessness or absence
of social ties. It should be noted that homeless persons can include persons with
undetermined citizenship and stateless persons.
The story of Dmytro Shygun
Dima was born in 1985 in a reindeer
herding village in the Republic of
Sakha, the Russian Federation. He
had no birth certificate. He was left
alone without parents very early. When
asked if he tried to obtain documents
at the place of his residence, he
replies: “I could speak only Sakha
then. Yes, I heard that some people
from the village had documents, but I
didn’t know I also needed them. I lived a homeless child’s adventurous life…”. He
only started thinking about obtaining documents in 2002, when he seriously
decided to study.
Realizing his vulnerable situation as a person having no identity papers, Dima
started looking for people like him, namely Asians. He did that to feel somewhat
protected and avoid ethnicity-based discrimination. For example, in 2002-2005
he travelled around the states that had emerged in the post-Soviet territory. Since
Shygun crossed their borders illegally he was repeatedly detained for having no
documents, but released every time because on paper he simply did not exist
23 See http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2623-15
24 See http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/z1089-12
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