Update from June 2022:
No general statistics are available on the stateless population in Cyprus. However, in 2021 , the Asylum Service recorded 10 people registered as stateless who were granted refugee status, and in 2022 (January-June) 6 people were registered as stateless and granted refugee status. This represents an increase compared to previous years as between 2016 and 2019 no one registered as stateless was granted asylum. In 2021 the Asylum Service improved how it gathers statistics on stateless people and began registering people under the categories ‘stateless’ and ‘unknown nationality’ as opposed to registering people according to their country of habitual residence as was previously common.
There were no major law or policy developments relating to statelessness in Cyprus in 2021. However, in January 2022, the Administrative Court of Cyprus ruled in favour of two children born to Turkish Cypriot parents who have been waiting for years for a response to their application for Cypriot nationality, finding that national authorities acted in violation of the law by not responding within a reasonable time. In June 2022, the Committee on the Rights of the Child issued its concluding observations on the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Cyprus, recommending that Cyprus establish legal safeguards to prevent statelessness, facilitate the acquisition of nationality for children who would otherwise be stateless, and consider ratifying the statelessness conventions. Further details will be included in the 2022 Index update (available from January 2023).
New resources on Cyprus now available include:
- 2021 Statelessness Index Survey
- Administrative Court of Cyprus, case no. 943/2018, 31 January 2022, and news article in English (April 2022)
- Committee on the Rights of the Child press release (May 2022) on its consideration of the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Cyprus and Concluding Observations (June 2022)
Cyprus is not State Party to any of the four core statelessness conventions, being one of only three European Union Member States yet to accede to the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons. Its performance against international standards in other areas of the Index is generally weak, and there is very little reliable data on the stateless population. Although statelessness is referenced in Cypriot law and may be identified in certain administrative procedures, there is no definition of a stateless person, no dedicated statelessness determination procedure, no stateless protection status, few protections against arbitrary detention, and few safeguards to prevent statelessness in Cypriot nationality law.
Some procedural safeguards exist in the asylum procedure and in relation to detention, including the right to legal aid and remedies. If refused asylum and subsidiary protection, a stateless person may be considered for a short-term residence permit on humanitarian grounds by the Migration Department, but this is discretionary, grants limited rights and is not consistently applied. There is no safeguard to prevent children being born stateless in Cyprus, nor to regulate the nationality of foundlings, issues that were raised by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in its latest Concluding Observations to Cyprus. Problematic birth registration practices, including fees and requests for documentation, heighten the risk of statelessness among certain groups. Children born to Cypriot parents abroad acquire nationality automatically, but where a child is born in Cyprus to one Cypriot parent and one non-Cypriot who entered or remained in Cyprus irregularly, a discriminatory condition prevents the child from acquiring nationality unless the Ministerial Council orders otherwise. There are no safeguards to prevent statelessness in cases of deprivation of Cypriot nationality.
Information below by theme was last updated in March 2021.
Corina Drousiotou, Cyprus Refugee Council
Additional resources
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ADDITIONAL INFO