Tajikistan’s Pledges to End Statelessness SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: CENTRAL ASIA Tajikistan made four pledges pertaining to statelessness at the High-Level Segment on Statelessness in 2019.606 The pledges included committing to consider legalization of persons illegally residing in Tajikistan (Amnesty Law), reform the Civil Registration System and ensure safeguards for universal child birth registration, consider ratification of the 1954 and 1961 Conventions on statelessness, and “explore the scale of statelessness through identification of persons at risk of statelessness, stateless persons and persons with undetermined nationality.607 of access to social and economic services.596 As a party to CEDAW, Tajikistan is obligated to ensure gender equality in nationality laws.597 While there are no discriminatory provisions in Tajikistan’s legislation, data suggests that implementation has not resulted in equality.598 Included in the 2023 concluding observations by the CERD Committee were concerns about the 2011 Family Code which places discriminatory regulations on foreigners and stateless persons marrying Tajik women.599 By ratifying the ICERD, Tajikistan has committed to ensure no discrimination based on nationality or legal status.600 On this, Tajikistan has successfully enacted a new Amnesty Law and reform the Civil Registration System, but did not follow through in ratifying the Conventions on statelessness or improving its identification of stateless persons.608 One of the key protection issues, challenges, and recommendations included in Tajikistan’s 2021 UPR submission was universal birth registration.609 It was noted that parents who lack identity documents may have difficulty registering their child’s birth in practice.610 Recommendations on this include amending the Law on Civil Registration to ensure there are no barriers for parents without identity documents and “raise awareness of the importance of birth registration and birth certificates, especially in rural areas”.611 Under the CRC, Tajikistan is also bound to ensure that every child is registered immediately at birth.601 While recent improvements in legislation have significantly improved access to birth registration in rural areas, the Republic should monitor the implementation to ensure that birth registration rates continue to increase and become more equal in accessibility.602 Tajikistan is one of only four states globally to have ratified the Convention on Legal Aid and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases (‘Minsk Convention’), which marks its obligation to ensure the right to a nationality, the right to change nationality, and freedom from arbitrary deprivation of nationality.603 The new Law provided the opportunity for stateless persons to obtain residence permits, resolve complex cases of statelessness, and a possibility of gaining citizenship in just three years. Population Reported stateless persons In 2022, there were 5,391 reported stateless persons in Tajikistan, which is a decrease of 719 stateless persons from the reported population in 2021.604 However, the reported population has overall increased by 775 people since the beginning of 2019.605 58 Like all countries in Central Asia, Tajikistan has been directly affected by the disintegration of the USSR which left millions on the wrong side of the borders of fifteen new successor states.612 Those who have not yet gained citizenship of Tajikistan after the disintegration make up a major portion of the reported stateless population in Tajikistan.613 Further, Tajikistan experienced a civil war throughout the 1990s that caused economic and political hardship and resulted in displacement that left some people stateless.614 Statelessness in Tajikistan is also partly attributed to legislative and administrative gaps.615 STATELESSNESS ENCYCLOPEDIA ASIA PACIFIC (DETAILED VERSION) SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: CENTRAL ASIA TABLE 13 Reported stateless persons to the UNHCR Country Tajikistan 2019 (year start)616 2020 (year end)617 2021 (year end)618 2022 (year end)619 4,616 6,385 6,110 5,391 Source: UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement from 2019-2022. While Tajikistan has launched identification campaigns across different regions of the country, insufficient infrastructure in the country has presented a major challenge for identifying individuals affected by statelessness.620 This is especially problematic due to the fact that the majority of stateless communities in Tajikistan live in remote border areas.621 Official statistics on stateless persons in Tajikistan only includes individuals who have a permanent residence permit as well as an official document verifying their stateless status.622 While Tajikistan has launched identification campaigns across different regions of the country, insufficient infrastructure in the country has presented a major challenge for identifying individuals affected by statelessness. Women make up 65% of the reported stateless population in Tajikistan, which has been noted to be a result of women disproportionately lacking valid identity documents compared to men.623 Male family members tend to be the first to receive the limited resources available to rural families where rates of statelessness are higher.624 Persons at risk of statelessness Populations at risk of statelessness in Tajikistan include foreign citizens who are in the process of applying for citizenship of the Republic, children born to stateless parents or parents with undetermined nationality who do not have permanent residence.625 Tajikistan also hosts some of the Lyuli/Mughat ethnic group, recognized in Tajikistan as the Roma/Jughi, who face socioeconomic discrimination and barriers to social services which increase their risk of statelessness.626 Causes of Statelessness Lack of legal safeguards against childhood statelessness For children born to one citizen parent and one stateless parent they are entitled to citizenship regardless of their place of birth.627 Despite this protection under the Constitutional Law, UNHCR has raised concerns that children in these circumstances may still be at risk of statelessness. If the parent with different citizenship is stateless, there is a possibility for the child to become stateless as well, despite Article 13(4) of the Constitutional Law stating they will be a citizen, due to specifications in the Resolution on the rules of issuance of passports of nationals of the Republic of Tajikistan”.628 There however, is a difference in the way citizenship is established if the mother is a stateless individual and the father is a citizen of the Republic of Tajikistan.629 The child acquires Tajik citizenship upon the presence of a marriage/ dissolution certificate of parents, necessary to confirm the fact of paternity of the biological father of the child. On the birth certificate of the child the name of the child's father (a citizen of Tajikistan) is indicated. If the mother is a citizen of the Republic of Tajikistan and the father is a stateless individual, the child is automatically granted citizenship, even if the marriage of the parents is not registered at the civil registry office.630 In this case, the basis for obtaining a birth certificate for the child is a medical document on the fact of birth issued in a maternity hospital. Similar to other Central Asian countries, Tajikistan’s citizenship laws include an additional condition of permanent residency when both parents are stateless. The law states that if a REPORT 2024 59