1. Lack of Legal Safeguards Against Childhood Statelessness
Mongolia’s citizenship laws provide some safeguards against statelessness and protections for foundling children. A child born to one Mongolian citizen and one stateless parent will be a citizen of Mongolia regardless of birthplace. Children born to stateless parents permanently residing in Mongolia can only access Mongolian citizenship after reaching 16 years of age. This is problematic as stateless children often are denied the right to education, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living. Foundling children born in Mongolia are automatically considered Mongolian nationals. There are, however, no legislative safeguards protecting children born outside of the territory from becoming stateless in the event that the parents fail to provide the required written agreement in order to gain citizenship.
2. Administrative Barriers
A 2010 stateless survey showed that a lack of knowledge of the administrative process and information only being available in Mongolian fundamentally limited the ability of the largely stateless Kazakh ethnic minority population from gaining citizenship.
The CRC has noted that while Mongolia has a high rate of recorded birth registration (reported to the UN Statistical Department to be 100% in 2021), additional efforts are needed to ensure that children of Kazakh ethnicity whose parents have either returned to Mongolia or internally migrated have access to birth registration and citizenship. Births are registered immediately in Mongolia, and failure to register a birth could cause a person to be denied public services. Further, one must have a birth certificate in order to receive a passport, as stipulated by the Law of Mongolia on Citizenship.
