èè Reforming civil registration laws and practices and improving civil registration systems Aligning civil registration laws and regulations with international standards is a first step towards making birth registration universally accessible. Thailand’s reform of the Civil Registration Act in 2008 made clear that birth registration should not be limited to children of Thai nationals. Since 2008, all children born in the territory can be registered regardless of their parents’ nationality and legal status, allowing members of stateless communities to register their children’s births and thereby reduce the risk of statelessness. (For more information, see Section 4.) In 2016, Bangladesh’s Department of Local Government extended the 2004 Birth and Deaths Registration Act to 18,564 children of registered refugees living in the Kutupalong and Nayapara camps who were born in Bangladesh between 1 January 1992 and 30 June 2016. The data on these children were held in a functional registration system for refugees operated by the Bangladesh Government’s Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission and UNHCR. By April 2017, over 60 per cent of the backlog of these cases had been registered in Bangladesh’s digitized civil registry, the Birth and Death Registration System (BRIS). With technical support by UNHCR, children born to registered refugees after 30 June 2016 are now directly registered by local civil registrars into BRIS, as well as in the functional refugee registration system. Strengthening existing civil registration systems is often necessary to make birth registration universally accessible. Countries are doing so through integration of civil registration services into other public sectors, improving access by bringing services closer to the people, and through digitalization. It has been shown that birth registration rates have risen where synergies have been developed with other sectors such as health, education and social security. In the health sector, and particularly in maternal health services, midwives, doctors and birth attendants play a key role in informing parents about the importance of birth registration and associated procedures. Health professionals are also a vital entry point to the registration process since in most countries they are responsible for issuing birth notifications, the first step in the process.28 INTEGRATION IN MATERNAL HEALTH SERVICES – JORDAN As a result of UNHCR and partners’ advocacy efforts, Jordan has effectively integrated birth registration for refugee children into the country’s health sector.29 Recognizing the links between the maternal health sector and birth registration, UNHCR and its partners have ensured that refugee women receive counselling and information when they access services such as pre-natal and post-partum care. This has successfully reduced the obstacles that refugee women faced in Jordan when they required maternal health care. 100 per cent of camp residents and 96 per cent of refugees living in urban areas now give birth in hospital. Refugee women are able to deliver their children safely, receive the medical care they need, and obtain a birth notification, which is only issued by hospitals or certified midwives. Where civil registration services are unavailable or out of reach due to high transportation costs, poor road infrastructure, poverty or low levels of literacy, it is important to bring services to the concerned population. In Kenya, UNHCR supports partners to conduct mobile birth registration exercises in areas where stateless communities live, notably Kwale and Kilifi counties. These exercises are planned and conducted in collaboration with the Civil Registration Services department. (For more information, see Section 4.) In Jordan, the Government established dedicated civil registration offices and mobile services in the country’s refugee camps, thereby making services directly available to the population at risk. (For more information, see Section 4.) 28 Depending on the country context, birth notifications are issued by health facilities, birth attendants or midwives. Notifications provide essential information on the age, identity and parentage of newborns, thereby enabling parents to initiate and complete birth registration at a later date. 29 UNHCR, In Search of Solutions: Addressing Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa (September 2016), at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/57dbdaba4.html. 7 CAMPAIGN TO END STATELESSNESS WITHIN 10 YE ARS