Nansen Refugee Award 2019

A lawyer whose work has supported the efforts of the Kyrgyz Republic in becoming the first country in the world to end statelessness has been selected as the 2019 winner of the UN Refugee Agency’s Nansen Refugee Award.

Azizbek Ashurov, through his organization Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders (FVLWB), has helped well over 10,000 people to gain Kyrgyz nationality after they became stateless following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Among them, some 2,000 children will now have the right to an education and a future with the freedom to travel, marry and work.