UNHCR has published an Operational Update March-May 2024 highlighting its activities in Central Asia. According to the report in 2024 UNHCR requires $10.03 million to protect refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless people across Central Asia. Turkmenistan is the only country in Central Asia that has accessed to the Statelessness Conventions.
Since its independence Turkmenistan has granted citizenship to nearly 30,000 individuals and residence permits to nearly 6,000 people. The country supported two Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights recommendations related to statelessness including – 99.33: “Effectively implement… the Action Plan for the Elimination of Statelessness until 2024”. Nevertheless, Turkmenistan has 3,583 stateless people who are not considered a national of any country.
Figure 1. Refugees and Asylum-Seekers and Stateless people in Central Asia
In 2024 UNHCR organized three trainings and one seminar, and participated in one conference in Turkmenistan to raise the issue of statelessness. However, compared to Kazakhstan, for example, the engagement from UNHCR in Turkmenistan was relatively minimal. In Kazakhstan UNHCR is involved in advocacy work on behalf of refugees and stateless people. For instance, in February 2024 following the advocacy of UNHCR the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kazakhstan approved the use of a refugee certificate as a valid identity document and included refugees in population documentation and registration. UNHCR also has several partner organizations such as the Red Crescent Society, Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law and the Legal Center for Women’s Initiatives. These partners organized relevant public awareness campaigns, presentations and monitoring missions to assess the situation of refugees and asylum-seekers. Moreover, there are higher education scholarship programs for refugees in Kazakhstan. In May, UNHCR launched the Kazakh language section of the website.
