17. Notwithstanding the commendable efforts to ensure that all children in the State party are registered, the Committee, noting the existence of discrimination and administrative obstacles that preclude some children from being registered, in particular Palestinian and Syrian refugee children, and Dom and Bedouin children, recommends that the State party undertake the following measures:
(a) Intensify discussions with the relevant religious authorities and other relevant stakeholders with a view to amending Decree No. 15 on Lebanese Nationality of 1925 to grant Lebanese women equal rights with Lebanese men with regard to transmission of their nationality to their children and to provide adequate safeguards to ensure the conferral of citizenship to children who would otherwise be stateless;
(b) Further strengthen efforts to ensure that all births of children in the State party are registered, in particular, children of refugees and asylum seekers, migrant workers and historically stateless communities, including by streamlining documentation requirements and other barriers to obtaining an official birth certificate in cooperation with the States concerned, and to provide statistics to assess this issue in its next periodic report;
(...)
(d) In the absence of formal registration, ensure that valid special identity cards are provided to children of Palestinian fathers who are neither registered as refugees by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in Lebanon nor recognized as such by the Lebanese authorities. Streamline the application and renewal processes, and ensure that such special identity cards are recognized as having the same status as formal registration by the Lebanese authorities;
(e) Amend the 1951 Personal Status Law to facilitate birth registration for children over the age of one year, and amend article 12 of the Registration of Personal Status Documents Act to allow the mother or the juvenile court judge to request the registration of such children in addition to the Public Prosecutor or father of the child;
(f) Ensure that article 1.3 of Decree No. 15 of the Lebanese nationality law, which provides for granting Lebanese nationality to children born in Lebanon of unknown parents or parents of unknown nationality, is implemented in practice, and amend article 25 of Act No. 422 on the Protection of Minors in Conflict with the Law or at Risk so that an unregistered minor is not considered at risk in accordance with this law;
(g) Consider becoming a party to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
30. While commending the efforts of the Ministry of Public Health to upgrade and expand the primary health-care system, including the response of the health sector to the Syrian refugee crisis, the Committee, with reference to its general comment No. 15 (2013) on the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, and taking note of targets 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals, recommends that the State party:
(a) Continue to strengthen efforts to ensure access to quality health care, in particular for stateless, refugee and asylum-seeking children, children of migrant workers and families in situations of poverty, by expanding the national network of primary health centres to cover all primary health centres in the State party and the accreditation programme established by the Ministry of Public Health;
35. Taking note of targets 4.1, 4.2, 4.5 and 4.a of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Committee urges the State party to:
(a) Ensure the right to compulsory and free education for all and continue efforts aimed at improving access to education by refugee, asylum-seeking and stateless children by addressing barriers to access to education, including inadequate facilities and funding;