“Given the progress achieved to date, the Republic of Serbia is on the countries that seem poised to fully eradicate statelessness by 2024, or indeed even sooner, Minister Marija Obradović said at today’s conference held to present the results of UNHCR’s survey “Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia – Overview of the Current Situation and the Way Forward”, conducted by Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) from October to November 2020.
Ms. Obradović said the UNHCR and the Protector of Citizens, the two implementing agencies of this demanding effort, had already done a lot and the Ministry was highly satisfied with their work.
She pointed out the report of the UNHCR Representation in Serbia of March 2019 had praised Serbia for its outstanding achievements in the prevention and reduction of the number of stateless persons and highlighted some of the solutions applied in Serbia as examples of good practice for other countries of the region and beyond.
“Based on the results, we can say the number of persons not registered in the civil register of births has been reduced to a minimum and the activities undertaken by the Ministry in this regard have yielded results”, Ms. Obradović noted, recalling this had also been recognised in the process of evaluation of Serbia’s progress in EU accession.
Addresses were also made by the Protector of Citizens Zoran Pašalić, M.Sc., and the head of the UNHCR Representation in Serbia Ms. Francesca Bonelli, followed by a presentation of the results of cooperation between the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, the United Nations High Commissariat for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Protector of Citizens of the Republic of Serbia in eradicating the risk of statelessness in Serbia, as well as the results of the legislative changes implemented to prevent the issue of statelessness from re-emerging.
In Serbia, this phenomenon affects primarily the most vulnerable members of the Roma community and internally displaced persons. Recognising a need for a joint, cross-departmental approach, the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, the UNHCR and the Protector of Citizens of the Republic of Serbia signed in 2012 the first tripartite Memorandum of Understanding, which led to fundamental legislative changes and resulted in a reduction in the number of persons at risk of statelessness. In 2019, the parties signed the second Memorandum of Understanding to address the remaining issues in this field.
Photo gallery – source: Tanjug
