1. Lack of Legal Safeguards Against Childhood Statelessness
In Kyrgyzstan, citizenship laws have been amended to remove the requirement of written consent from parents of different citizenship in order to pass Kyrgyz citizenship to their child which had created the potential for children in this situation to remain stateless. Amendments have also been made to address a gap in legal protection that existed for children born to stateless parents who are not permanent residents of Kyrgyzstan, with the requirements of residence removed from Article 12 of the Law on Citizenship. Article 12 stipulates that children with one parent who is stateless or unknown and one parent who is a citizen of Kyrgyzstan will have citizenship of Kyrgyzstan, regardless of their birthplace. Further, jus soli provisions also provide that a child born in the territory whose parents or single parent are stateless will also be a citizen. Further, where a child is born on the territory of Kyrgyzstan to foreign parents or a single parent and the state of their citizenship fails to grant citizenship to the child, they will be considered a citizen of Kyrgyzstan. Foundling children are also provided with citizenship as per Article 12 of the Law.
2. Citizenship Stripping
Kyrgyzstan has undertaken major amendments to the country’s citizenship laws to address a lack of safeguards against statelessness in the case of deprivation of citizenship. A Kyrgyz citizen may lose their nationality if they are found to be or have been involved in the commission of a terrorist crime. Article 41 of the Law on Citizenship provides that decisions regarding “citizenship may be appealed through the court” within six months of the decision. If this deadline is missed for a legitimate reason, an appeal may be filed.
3. Administrative Barriers
Although Kyrgyzstan does have a high birth registration rate at 98.9%, over 18,000 children under the age of 5 are lacking birth registration which prevents their access to many basic services. Previously, in order to register a birth of a child, the parents had to show documentation proving their identity, which presented a barrier for the birth registration of children born to two parents without documentation. However, in June of 2023, a new law came into effect which ensures that all children are registered at birth regardless of the legal status of their parents. This new law also protects children who have already been born to stateless or undocumented parents as they will now also be eligible for birth registration. Certifying documents for citizenship in Kyrgyzstan include both a birth certificate and passport. As a result, increased access to birth registration is likely to increase access to citizenship for individuals and families affected by statelessness in Kyrgyzstan.
While not an administrative barrier, increasing trends of unregistered marriages in rural areas is one reason why birth registration remains an issue. While women have equal access to birth registration in law, in practice oftentimes the equality is not there.
