Stateless people are particularly vulnerable and often lack access to social assistance. Lyatifa Agayeva, a character in the Without Borders project from Turkmenistan, knows from the experience of her own family how difficult it is to live without citizenship.
Asya Akimzhanova
January 20th, 2021
“I came to Turkmenistan with my children from Azerbaijan for permanent residence in 1993. My relatives lived here. I was 32 years old. I got married in Turkmenistan, got a residence permit, but I didn’t change my Soviet passport for a new Turkmen one in time. Now I can’t remember why—probably out of mere carelessness.
Of course, now I regret it so much
I realize that I’ve failed to do everything in time only because of my ignorance—I didn’t know how the law works. If I had known that not only I but all my children would have such difficulties, I would have gone through all the necessary procedures at once.”
Lyatifa has managed to solve her issue of statelessness thanks to the Keyik Okara civil society association, which helped her restore all the necessary documents. In 2019, she finally received her passport as a citizen of Turkmenistan.
Turkmenistan has granted citizenship to 26,000 refugees and stateless persons over the past 15 years. These include some 13,000 stateless persons who have been naturalized since the country acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons in 2011.
