ISI Database on Statelessness and
Human Rights

7. Recalling its guidelines for reporting under the Convention, 3 the Committee recommends that the State party collect and provide to the Committee reliable, updated and comprehensive statistics on the demographic composition of the population, including on ethnic origin, based on the principle of self-identification, as well as on non-citizens, including refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants and stateless persons, together with socioeconomic indicators, disaggregated by ethnic origin, gender, age and region, in order to provide the Committee with an empirical basis to evaluate the enjoyment in the State party of the rights enshrined in the Convention.

17. (...) (c) Undertake public education campaigns on the rights enshrined in the Convention and on how to file complaints of racial discrimination, particularly among Roma communities, stateless persons and migrant workers;

29. Recalling its general recommendation No. 27 (2000) on discrimination against Roma and its general recommendation No. 36 (2020) on preventing and combating racial profiling by law enforcement officials, the Committee recommends that the State party adopt and implement a comprehensive policy to address the structural discrimination faced by Roma and Dom communities to ensure their access to education, employment, health care and housing and ensure that all members of the Roma and Dom communities are granted official identity documents.

31. Recalling the relevant recommendation in its previous concluding observations,9 the Committee recommends that the State party continue to develop effective measures to ensure birth registration and issue birth certificates for all children without discrimination, and irrespective of the possession of identity documents by their mothers, including mothers who are asylum seekers or undocumented migrants. It also recommends that the State party strengthen its efforts to resolve the remaining statelessness cases, including by developing and adopting a legislative framework for a statelessness determination procedure to enable all stateless persons, without discrimination, to have their status ascertained and to obtain identity documents. It further recommends that the State party adopt measures to ensure that refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons can enjoy their economic and social rights without discrimination, in particular their access to education and health-care services.

8. Recalling paragraphs 10 to 12 of its guidelines for reporting under the Convention,3 the Committee recommends that the State party collect, and provide to the Committee in its next report, reliable, updated and comprehensive statistical data on the demographic composition of the population, based on the principle of self identification, including ethnic groups, indigenous and tribal peoples, and non-citizens, including refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless persons, together with socioeconomic indicators, disaggregated by ethnicity, gender and age. The Committee recommends that the State party provide the General Bureau of Statistics with adequate financial, technical and human resources to carry out the population and housing census in 2024, and that the State party continue its efforts to adopt, with the active involvement of indigenous and tribal peoples, people of African descent, ethnic groups and civil society organizations in Suriname, an appropriate methodology for the 2024 population and housing census, including in respect of self-identification. The Committee draws the State party’s attention to its general recommendation No. 4 (1973) concerning reporting by States parties under article 1 of the Convention, with regard to the demographic composition of the population.

34. The Committee recommends that the State party adopt and implement procedures for the determination of statelessness and to adopt measures for ensuring that all people born in the State party are registered and issued an official birth certificate. It also recommends that the State party raise awareness among people living in the interior of the State, and in local registry offices and other relevant institutions, on programmes and campaigns on the importance of registering the birth of all children, including children born to migrant workers in both regular and irregular situations.

37. Bearing in mind the indivisibility of all human rights, the Committee encourages the State party to consider ratifying those international human rights treaties that it has not yet ratified, in particular treaties with provisions that have direct relevance to communities that may be subjected to racial discrimination, including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), of the International Labour Organization, and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The Committee encourages the State party to accede to the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance.

52. The Committee recommends that the State party: (...)

(g) Take additional measures to develop and adopt a system for determining statelessness.

59. (...) The Committee encourages the State party to accede to the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

66. In accordance with article 9 (1) of the Convention and rule 65 of its rules of procedure, the Committee requests the State party to provide, within one year of the adoption of the present concluding observations, information on its implementation of the recommendations contained in paragraphs 36 (maternal mortality and sexual and reproductive health), 50 (e) (indigenous peoples) and 52 (a) (migrants, refugee, asylum-seekers and stateless persons) above.

6. The Committee recommends that the State party produce statistical data, disaggregated by sex and age, on the socioeconomic situation of ethnic groups and foreign nationals, including asylum-seekers, refugees and stateless persons, and on their access to education, employment, health care and housing and their representation in public and political life, where applicable, with a view to creating an empirical basis for assessing the equal enjoyment of the rights enshrined in the Convention.

24. The Committee recommends that the State party expedite the adoption of the new nationality code in order to put an end to discrimination against Beninese women with regard to the transmission of nationality.

25. (...) However, it remains concerned about the situation of a large number of stateless persons living on Île aux Oiseaux, over which Benin has exercised jurisdiction since 2005, when the International Court of Justice ruled on a border dispute between Benin and Niger, and about the fact that a solution has still not been found (arts. 2 and 5). (...)

26. The Committee recommends that the State party expedite and improve access to birth registration within the framework of the identification programme launched in 2017; fulfil its commitment to allow all inhabitants of Île aux Oiseaux wishing to apply for Beninese nationality to do so; and expedite the adoption of the new nationality code so that the jus soli principle may be applied in respect of children of unknown nationality or parentage. It also recommends that the State party provide, in its next periodic report, more detailed information on the implementation and assessment of the National Action Plan against Statelessness.

28. The Committee recommends that the State party expedite the adoption of the bill on the status of refugees and stateless persons in Benin and pursue its asylum policy in a manner that promotes integration and non-discrimination. It invites the State party to provide comprehensive and up-to-date information on reception conditions for asylum-seekers and refugees in its next periodic report.

46. The Committee wishes to draw the attention of the State party to the particular importance of the recommendations contained in paragraphs 12 (national human rights institution), 26 (stateless persons), 30 (situation of persons with albinism) and 36 (education on human rights and remembrance of the transatlantic slave trade) above and requests the State party to provide detailed information in its next periodic report on the concrete measures taken to implement those recommendations.

6. The Committee recommends that the State party collect comprehensive statistical information on the demographic composition of its population, including on ethnolinguistic groups, indigenous peoples, migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, stateless persons and persons at risk of statelessness, together with socioeconomic indicators, disaggregated by ethnolinguistic identity, gender, region of origin and languages spoken, and provide such information to the Committee.

37. Noting that descendants of migrants from States of the Southern African Development Community born in the State party qualify for Zimbabwean citizenship by birth under article 43 (2) (a) of the Constitution and that mobile teams have been dispatched to support their registration, the Committee is concerned by reports that many such people remain at risk of statelessness. While also noting that the legislation in the State party must be interpreted in the light of the Constitution, the Committee is nonetheless concerned that the Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act and the Immigration Act have not yet been aligned with the rights on citizenship guaranteed under the Constitution (art. 5).

38. The Committee recommends that the State party intensify its efforts to raise awareness among persons who qualify for citizenship by birth under article 43 (2) (a) of the Constitution about their rights and to support them in the process of obtaining citizenship. The Committee also recommends that the State party ensure that the provisions in the Constitution that provide for protection against statelessness are fully and expeditiously incorporated into legislation, including the Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act and the Immigration Act.

40. The Committee recommends that the State party intensify efforts to ensure that victims of the atrocities perpetrated by government forces in the 1980s, and their descendants, can obtain birth certificates and identity documents through a simplified process. The Committee also recommends that the State party develop and implement measures to facilitate access to civil registration documents, including birth registration, for persons belonging to minority groups in the State party, including by expanding mobile birth registration in remote areas, raising awareness among such groups about the importance of registration and ensuring that all provisions related to the issuance of such documents are performed in a non-discriminatory manner. 

45. (...) The Committee encourages the State party to accede the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

51. In accordance with article 9 (1) of the Convention and rule 65 of its rules of procedure, the Committee requests the State party to provide, within one year of the adoption of the present concluding observations, information on its implementation of the recommendations contained in paragraphs 12 (national human rights institution) and 40 (lack of identity documents) above.

25. While welcoming the progress made in improving birth registration through the newly set up online birth registration system, and taking note of target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Committee recalls its previous recommendations and recommends that the State party:

(a) Continue its efforts to register all children by, among other measures, establishing a centralized system for birth registration, introducing mobile registration units in the outer islands, raising awareness among the general public of the importance of birth registration and improving the completeness and accuracy of information collected at birth;

(b) Raise awareness on, and provide adequate resources for, the efficient functioning of online birth registration and issuance of birth certificates;

(c) Abolish all birth registration fees and administrative obstacles for late registration;

(d) Ensure that all children, including children of unmarried parents, whose father is unknown and who are born outside of hospitals, are properly registered at birth, including by raising awareness among the population to eliminate the stigmatization faced by children of unmarried parents and their mothers;

(e) Speed up the review and amendment of the Citizenship Ordinance of 1979 to prevent statelessness among children, by ensuring that children born abroad or to fathers of foreign nationality can acquire the nationality of Kiribati through their mothers.

9. In the Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967, there are now five million stateless Palestinians living without rights, in an acute state of subjugation, and with no path to self-determination or a viable independent state which the international community has repeatedly promised is their right. Over the past five decades, Israel has created 300 Jewish-only civilian settlements, all of them illegal, with 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers now living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the midst of, but apart from, three million Palestinians. In Gaza, Israel has barricaded the two million Palestinians into what former British Prime Minister David Cameron called “an open-air prison,” a method of population control unique in the modern world. In recent years, Israeli prime ministers have regularly and openly proclaimed that the country’s rule over the Palestinians and their land is permanent and that no Palestinian state will emerge.

46. (...) Among recent and current Israeli political leaders, the only debate regarding the Palestinians has come down to tertiary issues: whether the Palestinians will be granted a shrunken statelet with its own postage stamps and a seat at the United Nations, or alternatively be kept in their present state of statelessness. Either way, the intent is for the Palestinians to be encased in a political ossuary, a museum relic of 21st century colonialism.

42. Recalling its general recommendation No. 32 (2014) on the gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Collect data on stateless women and girls, disaggregated by age, ethnicity and disability, and provide such data in its next periodic report;

(b) Ensure that in all cases where a Turkish passport may be cancelled or withdrawn, the citizen concerned is given prior notice of such cancellation to be able to challenge such decision in court;

(c) Ratify the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961.

36. Recalling its general recommendation No. 32 (2014) on the gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Adopt legal provisions providing for a child born to a Namibian parent of surrogacy abroad to acquire Namibian citizenship by descent;

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

(c) Continue to facilitate birth registration, including where mothers have no identity documents or when they are refugees or asylum-seekers, through the use of electronic birth registration systems, and strengthen efforts to deploy mobile civil registry units to issue birth certificates in rural and remote areas and in indigenous communities;

(...)

29. The Committee welcomes the withdrawal by the State party of its reservations with respect to article 9 (2) of the Convention. Nevertheless, the Committee is concerned that:
(a) A bill amending and supplementing article 10 of the Nationality Act was introduced in December 2017 with the objective of allowing Moroccan women to confer Moroccan citizenship on their foreign spouse in the same way as Moroccan men can for their foreign wives; however, to date, this bill has not been adopted;

30. The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a) Expedite the adoption of the 2017 bill amending and supplementing article 10 of the Nationality Act;
(b) Consider ratifying the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons of 1954 and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness of 1961