Country briefing: Statelessness and refugees in Serbia WHY IS STATELESSNESS RELEVANT TO THE FORCED DISPLACEMENT DEBATE IN EUROPE? Statelessness is a hidden problem affecting many refugees arriving in Europe. According to Eurostat, of the four million people who applied for asylum in the EU in 2015-2018, more than 115,000 were recorded as ‘stateless’, of ‘unknown nationality’, or their nationality was recorded as ‘Palestine’. Many more come from countries with problematic nationality laws, such as Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Eritrea or Sudan, where gender discrimination or state succession means they or their children are at risk of statelessness. People affected by statelessness face discrimination if reasonable accommodation is not made for their nationality problems in international protection procedures and the provision of essential services. Most countries in Europe are inadequately prepared to respond: only a handful have procedures in place to determine who is stateless on their territory and grant them the specific rights enshrined in international and regional law with respect to the protection of stateless people and the right to a nationality. WHAT IS THE REFUGEE CONTEXT IN SERBIA? Serbia is primarily considered a transit country by refugees in Europe. The closure of the Balkan route in 2016 prompted a significant decrease in the number of registrations and asylum applications. Serbian Government data records that in 2015, 579,518 individuals were registered at entry and 586 asylum applications were lodged. In 2017, the numbers dropped to 5,153 registrations and 193 asylum applications. Most applications were suspended as applicants left the country after lodging their application. Among the 5,153 applications in 2017, 2,292 were minors and 850 were women. In 2015 and 2016 too, more than 50% of applicants were women and minors. In 2017, the top recorded countries of origin of asylum applicants were Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Iran. Challenges highlighted by civil society include the lack of consistent recourse to interpreters during registration, the lack of state-funded legal aid, the practice of recording country of origin as country of nationality and the absence of consideration of statelessness issues. WHAT IS THE LEGAL SITUATION FOR STATELESS PEOPLE IN SERBIA? Serbia is state party to the two UN statelessness conventions (1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and 1961 Convention on Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness), but not to the European Convention on Nationality. It has ratified all other relevant international and regional human rights instruments with no reservations and these have direct effect. Serbia does not have a dedicated statelessness determination procedure or any other mechanism to identify and determine statelessness. However, the status of stateless people is enshrined in law and rights deriving from it include travel documents, right to work, social security, education and protection against discrimination, but without a procedure to determine who is stateless, rights are rarely granted in practice. The 1954 Convention requires state parties to facilitate naturalisation for stateless people, as a solution to their statelessness, to grant them a nationality as soon as possible. In Serbia, there is no facilitated naturalisation procedure for stateless people. Serbia has safeguards in its nationality law to prevent childhood statelessness, but there are challenges relating to implementation in practice. For further information on statelessness in Serbia, see the Statelessness Index country page. 1