i. Outdated protection systems and the absence of Statelessness Determination Procedures (SDPs) 27. Asylum systems are outdated as they are designed to accommodate asylum seekers with a nationality rather than stateless asylum seekers. Thus, during the migration at borders and transit points, children without recognized nationality or legal status may be denied entry, detained, pushed back, or rendered invisible within migration systems. 28. Unlike most irregular migrants, who have either a country of origin to which they can return, or a protection claim like asylum, stateless persons have neither. Stateless persons often lack a mechanism by which to regularize their status even temporarily, let alone adjust to lawful permanent residence or to naturalise. In mixed movements, the lack of a specific mechanism to identify statelessness poses an issue as stateless children may be waiting for years or misplaced in a procedure that would not yield the best results for the child. For unaccompanied or separated children, statelessness compounds the lack of guardianship and oversight, heightening susceptibility to trafficking for labour, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, or criminal activities. 29. The absence of statelessness determination procedures (SDPs) in many countries and the lack of child-sensitive safeguards within them, results in stateless children being misidentified as irregular migrants and excluded from protection frameworks. This in turn increases the risk of being trafficked or re-trafficked. In mixed movements, early identification of statelessness within border, asylum and trafficking screening procedures is essential. 30. Only about 20 countries worldwide claim to have a formal SDP.8 However, even then not all offer a facilitated pathway to citizenship.9 In the Americas, only nine out of 35 countries have adopted an SDP. 10 Only eight out of 27 European countries have established such measures in law or policy.11 In Africa, there is a regional model law on the determination of statelessness12 but only Côte d’Ivoire and Benin have this procedure in operation. 13 In Asia-Pacific, only Philippines implemented it.14 31. Despite the critical importance of SDPs for protecting stateless children, international human rights mechanisms have issued relatively few recommendations on their implementation. The following graph illustrates the limited scope and regional distribution of such recommendations across the UN treaty bodies (CRC, CAT, CEDAW) and through the Universal Periodic Review:15 8 Momoh and others, ‘Statelessness determination procedures: Towards a bespoke procedure for Nigeria’, available at: https://statelessnessandcitizenshipreview.com/index.php/journal/article/view/137/65. 9 UNHCR, ‘Statelessness determination in the UK’, 2020, available at: https://www.unhcr.org/uk/sites/uk/files/legacy-pdf/5fd893304.pdf. 10 Red Ana, ‘Legal framework’, available at: https://www.americasns.org/legal-framework/. 11 European Network on Statelessness, ‘Statelessness Index’, available at: https://index.statelessness.eu/. 12 ECOWAS, ECCAS and UNHCR, ‘Regional model law on the determination of statelessness, the protection of stateless persons and the facilitation of their naturalization’, 2023, available at: https://www.refworld.org/legal/modellaw/unhcr/2023/en/124310. 13 Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative, ‘Côte d’Ivoire: Arrêtes Interministériels Nos. 836 & 837 du 02 septembre 2020 — statut d’apatride, 2020, available at: https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/cote-divoire-arretes-interministeriels-du-02-septembre-2020-statut-dapatride/?lang=fr. ; See also UNHCR, Statelessness Report 2024 (Multi-Country Office for Côte d’Ivoire, 2024). 14 Nationality for All, ‘Statelessness Encyclopedia Asia Pacific (SEAP)’, available at: https://seap.nationalityforall.org/region/regionaloverview/southeast-asia/. 15 These results were concluded based on a search of the database from the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, ‘Database on statelessness and human rights’, available at: https://database.institutesi.org/. At present, the database captures recommendations from the CRC between the period of 2006 – 2025; from CEDAW between 2010 – 2025; from CAT between 2011 – 2025; from UPR between 2008 – 2025. The data in the graph reflects this time period. 8