Human rights lawyer Azizbek Ashurov, who helped end statelessness in his home country of Kyrgystan, is this year’s winner of the UNHCR prestigious FILE – Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees speaks during a news conference in Bogota, Colombia, Oct. 6, 2018.U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi praises Ashurov’s achievement. He notes this is the first time the Nansen Award has been given to a champion of the stateless.“We have never done it before. It was always more related to displacement and refugees… So, we want to really celebrate with Azizbek’s work. A personal commitment and a commitment of an organization to reducing this very negative phenomenon around the world,” he said. Ashurov’s job is far from over. He and his foundation have formed mobile legal teams, which go to remote areas of the Central Asian country in search of vulnerable, socially marginalized groups to help them regularize their situation.He says his foundation also is working to help thousands of other stateless people throughout the region escape their legal limbo by becoming citizens of their countries with all the benefits that confers upon them.
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