Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Tens of thousands of people have become citizens of Uzbekistan over the past four years. This was discussed on 7 July 2021 during the 81st meeting of the Standing Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The panel session on the eradication of statelessness was dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Among the main speakers of the event were the First Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Director of the National Center for Human Rights Akmal Saidov, Deputy UN Secretary General, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Jillian Triggs, Deputy Secretary of State of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration of the State US Department Leslie Zieman, UNHCR Global Data Officer Volker Schimmer, UNICEF Child Protection Director Cornelius Williams and others.

Presenting the best practices of Uzbekistan in reducing statelessness in recent years, A. Saidov noted that the situation in this area has changed dramatically over the past 4 years, thanks to decisive measures to reduce statelessness, taken at the initiative of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

In particular, according to the current updated law "On Citizenship of the Republic of Uzbekistan", a new procedure has been established for granting citizenship directly to stateless persons registered at the place of permanent residence in Uzbekistan before 1 January 2005, as well as permanently residing in our country for 15 years.

In addition, in accordance with the UNHCR Global Action Plan for the Elimination of Statelessness by 2024, in order to ensure universal birth registration in Uzbekistan, changes have been made to the practice of birth registration, including for children born to undocumented parents, a national campaign has been launched. to identify and register all cases of unregistered births.

The progress achieved by Uzbekistan was positively assessed by the participants of the event. As they noted, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev not only supported the call of the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutterish for the Global Campaign to eliminate statelessness "#IBelong" from the high tribunes of the UN, but also took concrete steps to implement this important initiative in practice.

As A. Saidov noted, Uzbekistan continues to work to eradicate statelessness, during which it is necessary to solve a number of tasks. These include the further development of national legislation on statelessness issues, the improvement of the documenting mechanism for stateless persons, the introduction of additional simplifications in the procedure for acquiring Uzbek citizenship or obtaining a residence permit for a number of categories of stateless persons.

On all these issues, Uzbekistan is ready to further develop constructive cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.