Refugee crisis creates 'stateless

generation' of children in limbo

Babies born to migrants may be ineligible for citizenship in any country
because of biased laws and inadequate EU controls

Volunteers try to comfort a pregnant Syrian refugee on the Greek island of Lesbos. Photograph: Yannis
Behrakis/Reuters

Louise Osborne and Ruby Russell in Berlin and Antakya-Sunday 27

December 2015
Europes refugee crisis is threatening to compound a hidden problem of
statelessness, with experts warning that growing numbers of children are
part of an emerging stateless generation.
Gender-biased nationality laws in Syria combined with ineffective legal
safeguards in the EU states mean that many children born to Syrian
refugees inEurope are at high risk of becoming stateless a wretched
condition of marginalisation that affects 10 million people worldwide.

Under Syrian law, only men can pass citizenship on to their children. The
UN estimates that 25% of Syrian refugee households are fatherless.
A lot of those who are resettled to Europe are women whose husband or
partner was killed or lost and are being resettled with their kids or are
pregnant at the time, so that is becoming a bigger problem, said Zahra
Albarazi of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, based in the
Netherlands.
Sanaa* is a 35-year-old single mother who gave birth to her daughter,
Siba*, in Berlin last year. I went to the Syrian embassy and explained my
situation but they said they cannot give Siba a passport because the father
should be Syrian, and the father and mother married, Sanaa said.

Sanaa and Siba in Berlin. Photograph: Louise Osborne

Germany, in common with the rest of Europe, does not automatically grant
citizenship to children born there. This means Siba does not have
citizenship of any country.
Under international treaties including the UN convention on the rights of the

child, governments are obliged to grant nationality to any child born on

their soil who would otherwise be stateless. But few EU countries have
adopted this principle into domestic law and those that have consistently
fail to implement it.
The UNHCR refugee agency estimates that at least 680,000 people in
Europe are without citizenship of any country, although experts say the true
figure is likely to be far higher because stateless people are hard to count.
The statelessness problem is particularly bad in south-east Asia: in
Myanmar alone the UN estimates there are more than 810,000 stateless
people. But the situation in Europe is about to get much worse as a result of
the unprecedented migration.
Up until now, groups such as the Roma and Russian-speaking people from
the Baltics have been most affected, although the UN blames statelessness
on a bewildering array of causes, with people from a wide range of
backgrounds finding they are not legally entitled to citizenship of any
country.
No research has been done into the scale of statelessness among the
children of Syrian refugees in Europe, but it is thought that many are likely
to be in the same position as Siba.
Statelessness in Europe can pose huge problems. Experts say many parents
are unaware that their children are stateless. Often the children realise they
do not have legal citizenship only when they reach adulthood and find they
cannot legally work, marry, own property, vote or even graduate from
school.
A UNHCR report released this month says statelessness can prevent
children from leading productive and fulfilling lives and takes a
devastating psychological toll on them and their families. The report
quotes one Syrian refugee father saying: If they dont have a birth
certificate, its like they dont exist.
In the countries bordering Syria that are taking in the majority of refugees,
statelessness is already a major concern.

The UN says more than 30,000 babies born to Syrian refugees in Lebanon
are at risk of statelessness. And research by Refugees International (RI) this
year found that many of the 60,000 children born to Syrian refugees in
Turkey since 2011 could be in the same position.
In these countries, the risk of statelessness is partly due to refugees being
unable to properly register births. But children conceived through rape, as
well as those born to underage Syrian girls illegally married to men in the
host countries, may be at particular risk.
The scale of sexual violence both inside Syria and [against] refugees is
difficult to quantify, but appears quite high, said Daryl Grisgraber, from RI.
So I think these numbers are probably higher than we are even guessing
at right now. In addition, there are fathers who are dead, in detention in
Syria, or who have simply disappeared, and so cant be verified for the
purpose of birth registration in a host country.
Statelessness is also a serious concern for couples who dont have the
documents they need to prove their own legal status.
Rama and Rashed fled Syria separately and met in Turkey. Their son, Sayed,
was born in Antakya, just a few miles from the Syrian border.
Because they wed in an informal ceremony in Turkey, they do not have the
legal documents to prove they are married, and Rashed is not named on his
sons birth certificate. Who is he? Whats his nationality? he asked
hopelessly, cradling his young son in his lap. Without legal status, they fear
the child will not be able to attend school.
In Berlin, the authorities treated Sanaa with scepticism when she was
unable to name Sibas father, questioning the new mother about her sexual
history.
Rather than acknowledging her statelessness, they have given Siba travel
documents that identify her as a Syrian refugee. But according to Syrian
law, she has no right to Syrian nationality.

Refugees heading for Germany queue in an Austrian field. Photograph:

Armin Weigel/EPA
Right now the issue of statelessness is clouded by the fact that these
people are in the asylum system, said Karel Hendriks of the Amsterdambased refugee support organisation ASKV. The problem will emerge in a
few years, when hopefully the war eases off but also governments start to
decide that people are able to return. Then we will have cases of people
whose residence permits will not be extended but, because they are
stateless, cannot be sent back.
According to the UN, a stateless child is born every 10 minutes somewhere
in the world. The report adds that this is particularly startling given how
robust the international human rights framework is when it comes to
protecting childrens rights, including the right of every child to nationality.
Inge Sturkenboom, a protection officer specialising in statelessness at the
UNHCR, said it was more important than ever that EU governments met
their obligations under international treaties to protect children from
statelessness. What we need to see is the implementation of those
conventions through nationality legislation, but then also having that
legislation applied to the cases of children that should be able to benefit

from them.
In Jordan and Turkey the authorities are making moves to improve the
registration of refugee births. But even when every effort is made to do so,
if children fall short of Syrian citizenship requirements, they will be left in
limbo unless governments accept their responsibility to identify children
born stateless and grant them nationality.
Abdoulla and Marah live in the same apartment block as Rama and Rashed.
Like their neighbours, they married informally in Turkey. Marah is heavily
pregnant and one day recently the four parents debated the best course of
action to give their children legal status.

Syrian refugees during their wedding ceremony at a settlement in Jordan. If

marriages are informal, fathers cannot be named on birth certificates.
Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP
Marah was so concerned about her childs statelessness she was
considering returning to Syria to give birth and register the baby there. But
the others argued she would end up stuck in the war-torn country because,
under Syrian law, a woman cannot bring her child out of the country
without the fathers permission.

Abdoulla could not go with her because he would face arrest for defecting
from the Syrian army.
I would have preferred not to have a baby, said Marah, welling up with
tears.
That they could not agree on the best course of action points to how
complex the situation is. The Syrian conflict has upended legal and social
conventions, leaving children in legal limbo and their parents unsure of
their rights.
Sanaa said being a single mother would have been impossible in Syria
because of social stigma. She hopes that she and her daughter will
eventually be able to become German citizens, although there is no
guarantee that their application will be accepted.
To study here, to live here, to have the freedom to have her life, Sanaa
said of the benefits for her daughter of growing up in Germany. But she
added: I think in the future, she will wonder why she doesnt have Syrian
nationality.
Names have been changed

This article was made possible by a fellowship from the French-American

Foundation United States. The views expressed are solely those of the
author and do not reflect the views of the French-American Foundation or
its directors, employees or representatives.
Posted by Thavam