1. Reported Stateless Persons
UNHCR reported 4,527 stateless persons in Turkmenistan in 2022. This shows an increase of 247 reported stateless persons since 2021, but a decrease by 187 people since the beginning of 2019. These reported numbers have been derived from reports from UNHCR partners in Turkmenistan because UNHCR does not have an office in Turkmenistan and there are no official statistics available on the stateless population.
With the dissolution of the USSR, millions of people across Central Asia became stateless as a result of loss of USSR citizenship. Today, many of the reported stateless population in Turkmenistan is made up of individuals who have not been able to obtain citizenship of the new successor state. Unfortunately, due to lack of freedom of information and the absence of a UNHCR office in Turkmenistan, both qualitative and quantitative data on statelessness in the country is limited.
2. Persons at Risk of Statelessness
There have been multiple reports of state authorities ordering citizens of Turkmenistan to give up their passports and not apply for new ones as an attempt to restrict freedom of movement by the government. This could place people at risk of statelessness considering that the main citizenship certifying document in Turkmenistan is the passport.
Country | 2019 (year start) | 2020 (year end) | 2021 (year end) | 2022 (year end) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Turkmenistan | 4,714 | 3,924 | 4,280 | 4,527 |
Source: UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement from 2019-2022.
3. Turkmenistan’s Pledges to End Statelessness
In 2019, the Turkmenistan government established the National Action Plan to End Statelessness intended to resolve all existing cases of statelessness and ensure proper legal safeguards against statelessness by 2024. Unfortunately, as of 2022, the reported stateless population in Turkmenistan is still quite high, as discussed in the Population section, making the possibility of following through on this pledge slim.
Turkmenistan also made three pledges pertaining to statelessness at the High-Level Segment on Statelessness in 2019. The pledges include commitments to undertake a widespread registration campaign to register and improve statistics on stateless persons and ensure that all stateless persons have a fundamental right to citizenship, resolve all identified cases of statelessness, and redefine the definition of the status of stateless persons and end the risk of statelessness for children of undocumented people by realizing the National Action Plan in the upcoming 2022 Population Census. To date, there have been no improvements in the identification of stateless persons or on official statistics for the stateless population. As mentioned above, identified cases of statelessness have yet to be fully resolved in Turkmenistan. A new definition of the status of stateless persons has also not yet been solidified in national legislation. Commendably, however, Turkmenistan has taken steps towards ensuring universal birth registration for all children in the country, especially those born to undocumented parents.