Country Position Paper: Statelessness in Syria registration of vital events such as births, and their link to Syria… [being] lost” in cases where these hard copy records have been lost or destroyed in the conflict.41 A survey conducted by the IRC of 2,917 households in Idlib and Aleppo in 2015-2016 estimated that 34% of families were missing birth certificates for their children and 27% of households had no identity documents at all.42 This is due to a multitude of reasons, including lack of civil registry offices, difficulty accessing offices, security concerns or the lack of recognition of documents. 43 Based on a survey of 600 IDP households in north-western Syria, UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee Council found that “only six per cent of respondents reported having current access to government-issued civil documentation.”44 Many people in Syria have resided in areas that are, or were for some time, outside of the control of the Syrian Government.45 In such areas, there are challenges to accessing civil registration, as many civil registries have been “partially or totally destroyed”46 and documents issued by non-state actors may not be recognised, may not be genuine, or may contain different formatting and stamps. The Syrian Government stated in November 2018 that “an integrated service centre has been set up in Damascus to provide civil status services to citizens from all governorates.”47 However, this centre is not accessible for IDPs who are unable to travel to Damascus, stateless Kurds with restrictions on their freedom of movement throughout Syria, or those ‘wanted’ by the Syrian Government, which would likely include large numbers of people evacuated from opposition-controlled territories under recent reconciliation deals 4.1.1 Marriage Registration If a marriage is not registered, any child born to that partnership may not be able to establish their Syrian nationality as they will face difficulties obtaining birth registration. According to a study conducted by the Norwegian Refugee Council among Syrian refugee households in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, “more than half (52 percent) of the married Syrian refugees interviewed said that they did not have any type of document to prove their marriage (marriage contract, marriage certificate or family booklet)” – either because the marriage was contracted in Syria or in the country of exile but never registered, or the marriage documents were lost during flight.48 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion / Norwegian Refugee Council, Understanding statelessness in the Syria refugee context, 2016, at 19, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/584021494.html 42 International Rescue Committee, Identity Me: The Documentation Crisis in Northern Syria, July 2016, at 2 and 8, available at: https://www.rescue-uk.org/report/identify-me-documentation-crisis-northern-syria 43 International Rescue Committee, Identity Me: The Documentation Crisis in Northern Syria, July 2016, available at: https://www.rescueuk.org/report/identify-me-documentation-crisis-northern-syria 44 UNHCR and NRC, Displacement, housing, land and property and access to civil documentation in the north west of the Syrian Arab Republic, July 2017, at 4, available at: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/final_nrc_displacement_hlp_civil_doc_nw_syria_23_07_2017_en.pdf. 45 UNHCR, Mid-Year Trends 2018, 30 June 2018, at 35, available at: https://www.unhcr.org/statistics/unhcrstats/5c52ea084/mid-yeartrends-2018.html 46 UNHCR, End of Year Report – 2018, 17 February 2019, at 6, available at: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/UNHCR%20Syria%27s%20End%20of%20Year%20report%202018.pdf 47 Committee on the Rights of the Child, List of issues in relation to the fifth periodic report of the Syrian Arab Republic – Addendum - Replies of the Syrian Arab Republic to the list of issues, 9 November 2018, at 3, available at: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=1226&Lang=en. Please see this document for further amendments to civil status laws to access to civil status registry offices within Syria. 48 Norwegian Refugee Council, Syrian refugees’ right to legal identity: implications for return, January 2017 https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/pdf/briefing-notes/icla/final-syrian-refugees-civil-documentation-briefing-note-21-12-2016.pdf 41 9