CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Relevant authorities have a responsibility to provide effective and durable solutions to end statelessness, ensuring access to rights for MeQ individuals until they acquire full citizenship, while preventing further statelessness in the country. • Gender stigma is as an important factor leading to statelessness among girls and women in Akkar, hindering their access to education, employment and to proceedings related to registration and naturalization for them and their children. The prevalence of male favoritism when it comes to registering children also contributes to female overrepresentation within stateless groups. Gender equality measures are drastically needed in this area to quash discrimination in that regard. • The Tripoli study recommended in 2019 the promulgation of a “draft law valid for a specific period of time which creates a special administrative process for resolving stateless cases without the need to resort to courts.” • As a result, a legislative proposal was prepared in January 2020, with the intention that the MoIM would directly handle registry additions for nonregistered MeQ persons in Lebanon, without the need for a court order. It is the most recent formal proposal on this issue, that would set up a special proceeding to temporarily (for 5 years) allow either stateless persons themselves, or the General Prosecutor’s Office (for cases it identifies), to claim formal personal status registration. This could lead to full citizenship for the “Lebanese stateless,” who form the bulk of the stateless population in Lebanon. That said, it would be advisable to remove any reference to a specific timeframe in this draft law or any other legislative framework that would accelerate the process leading to their acquisition of citizenship. • Should this or any other legislation and its relevant mechanisms become a reality, Lebanon would still need to undertake the necessary measures to prevent the occurrence of statelessness from any source or kind in the future, in addition to ensuring that domestic laws conform with Lebanon’s obligations under international laws. These include the Convention on the Rights of the Child (for a nationality and identity upon birth when another nationality is not available), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the 2018 Arab Declaration on Belonging and Identity (supporting “the effective implementation of laws that safeguard the rights of children in the region to enjoy a legal identity.”) • As such, significant steps are required to develop policy reforms that would help protect stateless persons and reduce and prevent statelessness (both at the local and national levels). Reiterating some of the recommendations that remain unheeded since 2019, below are some key action items for relevant stakeholders, by order of relevance. © 2021 Siren Associates. All Rights Reserved.