On 12 November 2021, the National Human Rights Centre of the Republic of Uzbekistan jointly with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency conducted a workshop on nationality and statelessness with the goal to present the main findings of a comparative legal analysis on nationality and statelessness in Uzbekistan. The analysis includes identified best practices and remaining gaps preventing access to nationality, at birth or through naturalization, and recommendations for follow-up actions by the Government, Parliament, and other key stakeholders.
“We are glad to present the results of the legal study this year, when we mark the 60th anniversary of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and reflect on the importance of this treaty and the urgent need to end statelessness globally. UNHCR lauds the great progress made by Government and authorities in reducing and preventing statelessness in Uzbekistan. As the analysis we publish today shows, relatively small changes in law can put an end to a root cause of statelessness or create a pathway to citizenship for stateless people. We stand ready to continue strongly supporting the efforts of Uzbekistan to eradicate and prevent statelessness as part of the #IBelong campaign to end statelessness globally by 2024,” said Mr. Hans Friedrich Schodder, UNHCR Representative for Central Asia.
The workshop was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Parliament of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Academy of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Military Technical Institute of the National Guard of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent State University of Law.
Uzbekistan hosts the largest known stateless population in Central Asia: out of over 88,000 stateless persons in the region, almost 70,000 reside in Uzbekistan. In recent years Uzbekistan made significant progress in reducing statelessness by introducing new legal amendments which will provide a pathway to citizenship for tens of thousands of people.
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