Re-registration of refugees and asylum seekers proceeding well

In a joint exercise by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Tajik government, efforts to re-register some 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the Central Asian state - the vast majority of them Afghan - are proceeding well. "Tajikistan's protection climate has improved considerably in the past years," Nicholas Coussidis, UNHCR representative in Tajikistan told IRIN in the capital, Dushanbe, on Wednesday. "This re-registration undertaking is a further manifestation of joint efforts with the aim of protecting and assisting refugees and seeking durable solutions for their future." His comments came two days after the UN refugee agency and Tajikistan's State Migration Service (SMS) began a wholesale registration and re-validation of all refugees and asylum seekers in the mountainous former Soviet republic. The exercise aims to collect and verify available information of these individuals, as well as provide them with identification documents. Although the SMS had previously registered many refugees and asylum seekers, many of its recordings had not followed a standardised electronic format, making data updating and processing a cumbersome process and leading to possible problems due to incomplete or expired refugee documentation. But it was the improved protection climate in the country that UNHCR prefers to emphasise the most now. Gone are the days when tens of thousands of asylum-seekers fled neighbouring Afghanistan, clustering on the deserted islands of the border river of Panj and crowding towns and markets up north. And while the improving situation inside Afghanistan has encouraged many of these people to return home, more than 9,000 with UNHCR assistance alone, continuing uncertainty and security concerns has resulted in some to remain in Tajikistan, forming a productive community of an estimated 3,000 people. As part of their protection and assistance needs, as well as helping the Tajik authorities in building a functioning refugee protection system, a critical element of UNHCR's refugee protection system is the registration and processing of data on persons of concern. The exercise, which began on Monday, was preceded by months of preparation. The UNHCR-sponsored database software was translated into Russian and adapted to the specific needs of the SMS and the UNHCR persons of concern in Tajikistan. UNHCR through its implementing partners conducted a massive outreach campaign explaining to the refugee population the necessity of registration and the procedure to be followed by SMS officials. Information provided by refugees and their digital photographs will be entered into a database and analysed and updated as necessary. The refugees and asylum seekers will supply this information during personal interviews scheduled to take place over a span of three weeks in Dushanbe and in northern Khujand, the second largest city in the country. Individuals residing outside these cities, as well as those with special needs, are offered the option of home interviews. Once completed, the database will be owned and operated by the SMS, whose officials were trained by UNHCR. The refugee agency will have unrestricted access to the information, but the database will remain confidential. This effort represents a further step in UNHCR’s long-standing relationship with Dushanbe. As noted by Coussidis, the country's protection climate had improved considerably over the past year and this re-registration undertaking was a further exchange of joint efforts with the aim of protecting and assisting refugees, as well as seeking durable solutions for their future. Initial analysis of the data was expected to be available in late March, an agency statement read on Monday.