ISI Database on Statelessness and
Human Rights

40. The State party should continue its efforts to ensure birth registration of all persons on its territory, particularly the Roma people, and to tackle de facto discrimination of the Roma through practical measures, programmes, incentives and awareness-raising initiatives to ensure full enjoyment of all their rights under the Covenant.

15. The State party should increase its efforts to:

(...)

(b) facilitate and enable registration of children born to parents without identification documents and allow internally displaced Roma who live in informal settlements to register their place of residence and to acquire identification documents, including by reviewing the law on permanent and temporary residence;

(...)

12. The Special Rapporteur and her predecessors have previously highlighted that the Citizenship Law (1982) is not in line with international standards (see A/69/398, paras. 12 and 53, and A/HRC/25/64, paras. 49 and 83 (f)), particularly regarding discriminatory provisions for granting of citizenship on the basis of ethnicity or race. (...)

15. The Special Rapporteur has already noted that many are sceptical of the citizenship verification exercise. Between June 2015 and December 2016, just over 600 identity cards for national verification were issued in Rakhine State compared to almost 26,000 elsewhere. Reasons for that include the lack of consultation with affected communities resulting in their lack of understanding of the process and the continued limitations on the exercise of rights by citizens recognized through the process. Consequently, most Rohingya and other non-citizen minorities rely on the compulsory household list as the only current evidence of legal residence in Myanmar.

16. The Special Rapporteur is particularly concerned by reports of Rohingya and others being coerced into applying for identity cards for national verification. (...)

33. Birth registration is important for combating child labour and to ensure access to vital services. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the first electronic platform for birth registration and efforts to expand registration. However, she notes that registration is alarmingly low for Muslims in Rakhine State and in some conflict-affected areas of Kachin and Shan States. She encourages increased efforts to improve birth registration in those areas, especially given the additional vulnerabilities frequently faced by children there. In non-government controlled areas in Kachin, civil documentation issued by ethnic armed groups is not officially recognized, causing difficulty for children with such documents to enrol in government schools.

90. Regarding the rule of law and democratic space, the Government should: (...)

(c) Review and amend the Citizenship Law (1982) to bring it into line with international standards. In particular, remove provisions that provide for the granting of citizenship on the basis of ethnicity or race;

(d) Resolve the legal status of habitual residents of Myanmar, including former holders of the temporary registration card, and ensure that they have equal access to citizenship through a non-discriminatory and voluntary process;

18. Taking into account the adoption of decree No. 18 of the Minister of Justice of Georgia on approval of the rule on the registration of civil acts in January 2012 and officials going door-to-door to establish identification documents, the Committee, taking note of target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals on providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, recommends that the State party:

(a) Set a realistic timeline for effective birth registration throughout the country and address administrative obstacles, with special attention paid to minority groups, refugees, stateless persons and families living in high mountain areas;

(b) Continue and strengthen ongoing efforts to establish institutional structures, such as mobile registration centres, in line with the Committee’s previous concluding observations (see CRC/C/GEO/CO/3, para. 28), in order to attain equal rates of birth registration for minority groups;

(c) Seek technical assistance from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF, among others, for the implementation of these recommendations. 

19. Noting the regulation of birth registration of children born in Georgia through surrogacy under article 19 of decree No. 18 of the Minister of Justice on approval of the rule on the registration of civil acts, the Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Address possible obstacles to the implementation of the decree, especially with regard to international surrogacy arrangements; 

(b) Ensure that a child born through surrogacy motherhood will be able to get access to the information about his or her origin;

(c) Amend the law on the legal status of aliens and stateless persons to fully comply with the provisions of the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons;

(d) Establish an effective and efficient identification and referral mechanism for children who are undocumented and at risk of statelessness;

(e) Accede to the 1997 European Convention on Nationality and the 2006 Council of Europe Convention on the avoidance of statelessness in relation to State succession. 

37. Taking into account the ongoing reform of the State party’s national refugee legislation and in line with 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:

(...)

(b) Allocate sufficient human, technical and financial resources for the implementation of the migration strategy and action plan for the period 2016-2020 to facilitate local integration of refugee and asylum-seeking children and their access to naturalization; 

12. (...) (d) Put an end to the withdrawal of Jordanian nationality from refugees of Palestinian origin residing in the State party.

39. (...) The Committee remains concerned, however, that, under the Act, Jordanian women are not entitled to pass their nationality on to their foreign spouses and their children. It is further concerned that the decision taken by the State party in 2014 to grant children of Jordanian mothers (who have resided in the country for a minimum of five years) and foreign fathers some “privileges” (mazaya) in areas such as education, health, work, property ownership and investment has not yet been published nor fully implemented

40. The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a) Review the Nationality Act, while taking into consideration practices of other States parties from the region that have successfully amended their nationality laws, to ensure equality between women and men with regard to the acquisition, change and retention of nationality and to enable Jordanian women to pass their nationality on to their foreign spouses and their mutual children;
(b) Ensure that the “privileges” (mazaya) approved by the Cabinet in 2014 are implemented without delay and that government agencies comply with that decision, including by making it accessible in the Official Gazette;
(c) Consider lifting the five year residence requirement for mothers in order to increase the number of children eligible for such services.

25. Taking note of target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals on providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, the Committee urges the State party to:

(a) Fast track the naturalization of children with undetermined citizenship in the age category of 15 to 18 years;

(b) Establish a statelessness determination procedure to determine whether individuals who arrive in the State party in a migratory context are stateless;

(c) Further strengthen technical assistance from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), among others, for the implementation of these recommendations. 

5. The Committee regrets the limited implementation of its previous recommendations of 2000 (CRC/C/15/Add.138) and recommends that the State party take all measures necessary to address its previous recommendations, in particular those related to policy and coordination (para. 17), monitoring (para. 21), discrimination (para. 29), right to a name and nationality (para. 37), health (para. 55), standard of living (para. 69), education (para. 71), child labour (para. 79) and children in armed conflict (para. 83). 

33. Taking note of target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals on providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, the Committee urges the State party to:

(a) Prioritize measures to ensure that effective birth registration is available to all children, both in urban and rural areas;

(b)  Take all measures necessary to provide free birth registration;

(c)  Consider reviewing, or suspending, article 134 of the Family Code to ensure that children are still able to be registered without penalties after the one- month period allowed;

(d) Intensify its efforts to raise awareness among the population in general, and mothers in particular, of the importance of birth registration;

(e) Provide training to registration officials and equip them with the necessary technical resources;

(f) Seek technical assistance from UNDP and UNICEF, among others, for the implementation of these recommendations. 

69. With reference to the Committee’s general comment No. 11 (2009) on indigenous children and their rights under the Convention, the Committee urges the State party to: 

(b) Provide all pygmy children with birth certificates and identity documents and promote their access to health and education services; 

31. The Committee recommends that the State party ensure full implementation of the new regulations that enable immediate birth registration of children whose parents do not have personal documents, and initiate procedures to establish the nationality of children born to stateless parents or those whose nationality is unknown. 

57. In the light of general comment No. 6 (2005) on treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, the Committee recommends that the State party: 

(e) Guarantee the right to acquire Serbian citizenship for all children currently residing in the State party who would otherwise be stateless, regardless of their own, or their parents’, legal status. 

18. Taking note of target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals to provide, by 2030, legal identity for all, including birth registration, the Committee urges the State party to:

(a) Effectively implement the National Registration Act, enforced as of 2015, making birth registration compulsory and universal;

(b) Consider developing mobile registration structures and creating mechanisms for registration at the traditional authority level, to ensure that the registration service is accessible to all;

(c) Expedite the scaling-up of health facility-based birth registrations;

(d) Develop and implement awareness-raising campaigns and programmes for the general public on birth registration and encourage parents to register their children;

(e) Consider ratifying the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of the Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and bring its national legislation in line with these international instruments (see CRC/C/MWI/CO/2, para. 65 (d)). 

39. The Committee recommends that the State party: 

(e)  Consider withdrawing reservations to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, particularly on the right of association (art. 15), which limits the freedom of movement and place of residence, on public education (art. 22) and on naturalization (art. 34), which has been used to deny most of the applications by refugees to residence permits. 

30. Taking into account target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals on providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, the Committee recommends that the State party amend its Citizenship Act and establish safeguards to prevent children from being stateless. It also recommends that the State party consider withdrawing its reservation to the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and consider ratifying the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.