And as stateless Roma woman
Roma considered to be the largest undocumented group in
Ukraine.
And the second reason why Roma risk being stateless in
Ukraine is due to a lack of documentation.
The estimation of the statelessness level can be based on the
statistics. Unfortunately, the state does not know the exact
number of the Roma population. Consequently, the scale of
statelessness is impossible to determine accurately. But
according to unofficial estimates of Coalition of Roma NGOs,
about 60,000 thousand Roma live at the risk of statelessness
in Ukraine.
And here we need to clarify. In most cases, Roma living
permanently in the territory of Ukraine are entitled to
Ukrainian citizenship according to the law, but do not have
documents determining their nationality. This is the reason I
personally believe that in Ukraine some of the Roma
communities are at a high risk of statelessness and therefore
deprived of access to administrative and medical services.
For instance, Roma women face the following obstacles in
acquiring identity documents:
The absence of state registration of civil records
documents prevents them from enjoying social and
economic rights.
The absence of birth certificate in practice deprives
children of the right to education and ultimately makes it
impossible to obtain higher education and employment.
Women without documents cannot receive birth