ISI Database on Statelessness and
Human Rights

22. While welcoming the almost universal birth registration in the State party and noting that the draft General Act on Civil Registration Operations is pending before the Senate, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Ensure particular attention to the birth registration of children of internally displaced parents or whose parents may be undocumented;

(b) Provide adequate guidance and resources to staff in consulates abroad in order to facilitate the birth registration of children whose parents may have foreign residence.

49. Recalling joint general comments No. 3 and No. 4 of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families/No. 22 and No. 23 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (2017) on the human rights of children in the context of international migration and its general comment No. 6 (2005) on the treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(l) Consider ratifying the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

10. Noting with concern significant data gaps on the situation of children, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(c) Improve the collection and analysis of data on birth registration (...)

16. While noting the efforts of the State party to address discrimination, the Committee recommends that the State party: (...)

(c) Ensure that children in disadvantaged situations have access to birth registration, education, adequate health services, housing and an adequate standard of living.

20. The Committee notes with appreciation the digitalization of birth registration but is concerned about barriers faced by children in disadvantaged situations. The Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Strengthen its efforts to achieve universal birth registration and ensure that all children, including children in rural areas, children belonging to minority groups, asylum-seeking and refugee children, children whose place of birth cannot be determined and children without identity documents, have access to birth registration and identity documents, including by adopting the civil registration and identification bill, increasing mobile registration units and outreach visits to rural areas, strengthening multi-agency coordination between government departments, health-care facilities and schools and providing interpretation services;

(b) Conduct a comprehensive public awareness-raising campaign regarding the importance of registering children’s births and the associated procedures, particularly targeting rural areas and regions with low registration rates;

(c) Ensure that safeguards are in place for the protection of stateless children, in line with the State party’s harambee prosperity plan and the pledge made at the Global Refugee Forum to prevent and reduce statelessness;

(d) Take legislative measures, including by adopting the bill on statelessness, to facilitate the acquisition of nationality for children who would otherwise be stateless, including foundlings and orphans, and ensure that such provisions include a definition of foundling;

(e) Consider ratifying the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

21. The Committee notes with appreciation the decriminalization of “baby-dumping” but is concerned about the large number of abandoned babies and the lack of a legal framework for surrogacy. The Committee recommends that the State party:

(b) Consider adopting a regulatory framework for protecting the rights of children born through surrogacy, including their right to nationality and access to information about their origins.

40. Noting with appreciation the policy on inclusive education of 2013 and the establishment of schools in Osire refugee camp for asylum-seeking and refugee children, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Strengthen measures aimed at ensuring that all children with disabilities, including forcibly displaced and stateless children, have access to inclusive education in mainstream schools, such as by: (i) incorporating innovative teaching methods and approaches for enhancing inclusion into the policy on inclusive education; (ii) allocating sufficient resources for ensuring reasonable accommodation within schools infrastructure; and (iii) adapting curricula and training, and assigning specialized teachers and professionals to integrated classes, so that children with disabilities receive individual support and due attention;

20. The Committee recalls its previous recommendations and urges the State party:

(...)

(b) To establish an effective and efficient identification and referral mechanism for children who are undocumented and at risk of statelessness, and ensure that its legislation is in line with the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons;

(c) To consider ratifying the European Convention on Nationality and the Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in relation to State Succession.

6. While noting the measures taken to review the Child Care and Protection Act and child rights-related provisions in national legislation, the Committee is concerned about the need for further progress in amending the Child Care and Protection Act and harmonizing child rights-related provisions in legislation with the Convention. The Committee recommends that the State party:

(b) Fully align national legislation with the Convention and further address any inconsistencies, including by implementing the recommendations of the National Law Review Taskforce and amending child rights-related provisions in the Child Adoption Act, the Penal Code, the Marriage Act and the Citizenship Act;

19. The Committee reiterates its previous recommendations4 and urges the State party:

(a) To ensure the right of all children, regardless of their parents’ nationality or marital status, to be registered at birth and have access to identity cards, including by: (i) revising the Bhutan Citizenship Act to disassociate birth registration from citizenship and remove the barriers that prevent the birth registration and access to nationality of children of non-Bhutanese or stateless parents; (ii) ensuring that the births of children of unmarried parents, non-Bhutanese parents or mothers with non-Bhutanese spouses are registered in the civil registration system; and (iii) removing the status of “dropout” for children who were not registered within 12 months of birth;

(b) To simplify the documentation requirements for birth registration, particularly for children of parents who do not have the documents required;

(c) To take measures to raise public awareness of the importance of birth registration and of collecting birth certificates;

(d) To ensure that women, including single mothers and Bhutanese women with non-Bhutanese spouses, are granted equal rights to men to confer Bhutanese nationality on their children;

(e) To prevent statelessness among children, develop a procedure to determine the stateless status of children and ensure that every child has the right to a nationality;

(f) To consider ratifying the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

42. Noting with deep concern the lack of progress in repatriating Lhotshampa children from refugee camps in Nepal, the Committee reiterates its previous recommendations and urges the State party:

(b) Ensure that all children belonging to minority groups, including Lhotshampa children, are protected against discrimination and guarantee their rights to nationality, health and education, as well as their rights to enjoy their own culture and practise their religion or beliefs freely.

21. The Committee urges the State party:

(a) To strengthen and expand the Network for Dialogue and Registration of the Guatemalan Population and the measures implemented by the National Registry Office, such as awareness-raising events, to ensure birth registration and the issuance of birth certificates for all children born on its territory immediately after the birth and free of charge;

(b) To adopt specific measures for registering the birth of children in disadvantaged situations, including those born in rural areas and remote areas, children living in poverty, Indigenous children, children of African descent, children with disabilities, children whose parents are deprived of liberty, and migrant, asylum-seeking and refugee children.

19. Noting the amendments to the Nationality Act in 2023 granting children of naturalized mothers the right to acquire Egyptian nationality on an equal footing with those born to naturalized fathers, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Ensure universal birth registration for all children, irrespective of the place of birth or their parents’ status, in particular, by removing the requirement for the father to be present or to submit a marriage certificate under the Civil Status Act for the registration of a child, which creates an obstacle to the registration of certain groups of children, such as abandoned children, children of single mothers, children of migrants, asylum-seekers or refugees and children born to unmarried parents, and facilitate the registration of children in remote areas of the country by providing mobile birth registration systems, as well as proactively facilitating late birth registration, including by raising the public’s awareness about the importance of birth registration;

(b) Consider ratifying the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons of 1954 and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961.

44. Drawing attention to its general comment No. 21 (2017) on children in street situations, the Committee recalls its previous recommendation and calls upon the State party:

(c) To ensure that children in street situations have access to birth registration and identification documentation, education, health care, safe shelters and childcare centres for physical and psychological recovery and reintegration;

21. While noting the amendment to the Citizenship Act (1995) in 2020, the Committee recalls its previous recommendations and recommends that the State party:

(a) Establish procedures for the identification and determination of persons as stateless, facilitate the naturalization of children with undetermined citizenship and collect data, disaggregated by relevant factors, on stateless children;

(b) Consider ratifying the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness;

(c) Consider ratifying the European Convention on Nationality and the Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in relation to State Succession.

40. Recalling the joint general comments No. 3 and No. 4 of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families/No. 22 and No. 23 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (2017) on the human rights of children in the context of international migration and its general comment No. 6 (2005) on the treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, the Committee recalls its previous concluding observations9 and urges the State party:

(d) To consider ratifying the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

19. Welcoming the adoption of Act No. 6149/2018 on the Protection of and Facilities for the Naturalization of Stateless Persons, the Committee strongly urges the State party:

(a) To ensure comprehensive free-of-charge birth registration and issuance of birth certificates for all children born in its territory, immediately after the birth, regardless of their or of their parents’ immigration status, including those who have expressed an intention to apply for asylum and those who are undocumented;

(b) To enforce the provisions of Act No. 6149/2018 related to the registration as nationals of the children of Paraguayans born abroad that are stateless by legal provisions of their country of birth;

(c) To address disparities in birth registration between urban and rural areas, especially in Indigenous communities, ensuring that all births are properly registered;

(d) To review article 56 of Act No. 1266/1987 to ensure that it aligns with non-discriminatory practices and respects the rights to Guaraní identity;

(e) To review the current registration system in order to identify any deficiencies that are preventing parents, especially in rural communities, from registering their children as soon as they are born;

(f) To perform an institutional evaluation with the National Directorate of the Civil Registry, in particular of their territorial offices, and mobilize public discussions starting within the National Council for Children and Adolescents to formulate and execute an institutional strengthening plan;

(g) To coordinate the departmental and municipal councils and the Municipal Advisory Services on the Rights of Children and Adolescents with the respective institutions, with a view to promoting the registration of children and the exercise of the right to identity, and disseminate the new regulations and existing legal and institutional adjustments to strengthen this process;

(h) In the case of Indigenous communities and isolated populations, to propose mobile service operations that, in addition to registration, bring other public services closer, under the conceptual slogan “the State reaches out to the community”;

(i) To ensure through data analysis and the monitoring of the mobile campaigns that all newborns in rural and isolated communities are registered.

22. The Committee strongly urges the State party:

(a) To ensure the registration and issuance of birth certificates for all children born in its territory, immediately after birth;

(b) To adopt without delay the national strategy for modernizing the civil registry and accelerate the introduction of a digital civil registry system to facilitate birth registration procedures;

(c) To develop special strategies and implement urgent measures to ensure birth registration for children born during displacement, in camps of internally displaced persons or in refugee camps and set up a catch-up system to register all children who have not yet been registered;

(d) To conduct awareness-raising programmes to inform the population about birth registration procedures and the associated rights to a nationality and access to education and health services.

28. The Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Accede to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness;

(b) Establish a statelessness determination procedure, in line with articles 2 and 9 of the Convention and the Committee’s general recommendation No. 32 (2014) on the gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women, in order to expedite naturalization;