It is not known exactly how many stateless persons are there in Moldova. According to the census of 2004, more than 5,300 persons said they are stateless, while over 300 didn’t indicate their nationality. At the same time, the data of the state-run Information Resources Center “Registru” show that there were slightly over 2,000 stateless persons in Moldova on October 1 this year. The problems faced by stateless persons in Moldova were discussed in a meeting of the Club of Investigation Journalists entitled “Situation of stateless persons in the Republic of Moldova”. The meeting was staged by the Journalistic Investigations Center and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), IPN reports.
The participants in the discussions, who included representatives of the authorities, said that Moldova is a party to the European Convention on Nationality and the Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in Relation to State Succession. The national legislation incorporates international standards on the prevention of statelessness. The nationality is granted to children born in Moldova, including to stateless persons and foreigners. The nationality can be withdrawn or renounced when the nationality of another state is obtained. Since 2012, the authorities have employed the procedure for determining the status of stateless person, which meets the requirements of the UNHCR and the best European practice. Moldova is one of the few countries that legalized this procedure, but the country has issued travel documents to stateless persons since 1996.
UNHCR National Office Head Traian Turcanu said the stateless persons face different problems, but the main include the lack of access to different services, such as health services, and to fair justice and the inability to move freely because they do not have the necessary documents.
The Republic of Moldova is mainly a transit country for migrants. The number of persons who ask for protection has continuously increased, especially amid the crises in Syria and, more recently, in Ukraine. As many as 72 applications for asylum were recorded in 2011, 177 – in 2012, 163 - in 2013 and 245 – in 2014. On October 1 this year, there were 443 persons with the status of refugee or beneficiary of humanitarian protection in Moldova. The asylum and refuge seekers are mainly from Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Armenia.
Ecaterina Silvestru, head of the Refugee Department of the Bureau for Migration and Asylum, said that international experts approved of the procedure for examining applications for obtaining the status of stateless person used in Moldova.
