A residence permit for stateless persons or a valid foreign passport is required for marriage registration (para. 3. 2 in the 2001 Civil Status Registration Rules). The lack of proper identification was reported by stateless persons as the primary reason for failed marriage registration. Thus, for example, the Southern survey illustrated that the marriages of approximately 12 percent of those surveyed (478 people out of 4,042 married couples) were not registered. One of the main reasons of that: attempts to register marriage were rejected. Common law marriage is not recognized as a legal form of marriage in the Kyrgyz Republic. However, most couples reported they had a traditional Muslim marriage ceremony, known as a Nikah. A traditional marriage that is not formally registered increases the risk of statelessness for children born into such unions which can deny them from exercising certain rights. For example, a woman from Uzbekistan residing in the Kyrgyz Republic is married to a Kyrgyz citizen but she has lost her Uzbek nationality because she did not register with the Uzbekistan consulate within the prescribed timeframe. If she were married traditionally, and does not possess a legal marriage certificate, it may result in the father of the child being excluded from the birth certificate unless a relationship with the father is legally established upon the joint application of the parents. The omission of a parent who is a Kyrgyz national in the birth certificate may also result in Kyrgyz nationality not being passed on to a child, which further puts the child at risk of statelessness. Death: The 2001 Registration Rules do not explicitly refer to nationality matters in death registration procedures. They more importantly do make reference to the withdrawal of a residence permit of a stateless person in case of death (Section 8.17). It is not therefore clear if the possession of a residence permit for stateless persons is necessary for a death of a stateless person to be registered and documented. There were no reports of failed death registrations among the population concerned during the Focus Groups. 3.5 Travel documents In order to freely leave and return to the Kyrgyz Republic, a stateless person requires a stateless person’s card which is issued by internal affairs bodies (the 2008 Residence Permit Regulations, para. 24). However, such a document may only be issued to a holder of a residence permit for stateless persons and therefore, is not accessible to most of the population concerned for reasons previously explained in section 3.3. NGO experts, in the South of the country referred to scenarios where stateless person’s cards were issued by relevant authorities to stateless individuals who were permanently living in Kyrgyz Republic. None of the surveys or reports refer to the issuance of stateless person’s cards to individuals with former USSR passports, or expired CIS passports or passports of other countries. A duty stamp has to be paid for both residence permits of stateless persons and stateless persons cards (the 2008 Residence Permit Regulations, para. 44). The issue of travel documents is directly linked to the need for a clearer statelessness determination process, which would ensure a legal basis for relevant public authorities to issue statelessness documents and increase the possibility of the enjoyment of rights and freedoms by stateless persons. 4. SECURITY FROM VIOLENCE AND EXPLOITATION 4.1 Law enforcement In meetings and Focus Group sessions some stateless persons claimed not to have confidence in law enforcement authorities and for this reason they avoid contact with them. 75 Small Changes ‫ ـ‬Big Gains: An Action Plan to Prevent and Reduce Statelessness in the Kyrgyz Republic