Lebanon (nine recommendations) • • • • • One recommendation on eliminating gender discriminatory provisions in nationality law on conferral of nationality to children and providing adequate safeguards for otherwise stateless children Two recommendations on birth registration One recommendation on children born on the territory to unknown parents or parents of unknown nationality Two recommendations on acceding to the statelessness conventions Three recommendations on rights for stateless children Issue Elimination of discriminatory provisions in nationality laws Nationality for children born to unknown parents or parents of unknown nationality Birth Registration Accessions Rights for stateless children What the Committee Said Intensify discussions with the relevant religious authorities and other relevant stakeholders with a view to amending Decree No. 15 on Lebanese Nationality of 1925 to grant Lebanese women equal rights with Lebanese men with regard to transmission of their nationality to their children and to provide adequate safeguards to ensure the conferral of citizenship to children who would otherwise be stateless. Ensure that article 1.3 of Decree No. 15 of the Lebanese nationality law, which provides for granting Lebanese nationality to children born in Lebanon of unknown parents or parents of unknown nationality, is implemented in practice, and amend article 25 of Act No. 422 on the Protection of Minors in Conflict with the Law or at Risk so that an unregistered minor is not considered at risk in accordance with this law. Further strengthen efforts to ensure that all births of children in the State party are registered, in particular, children of refugees and asylum seekers, migrant workers and historically stateless communities, including by streamlining documentation requirements and other barriers to obtaining an official birth certificate in cooperation with the States concerned, and to provide statistics to assess this issue in its next periodic report. Amend the 1951 Personal Status Law to facilitate birth registration for children over the age of one year, and amend article 12 of the Registration of Personal Status Documents Act to allow the mother or the juvenile court judge to request the registration of such children in addition to the Public Prosecutor or father of the child. Consider becoming a party to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (The Committee issues this recommendation twice to Lebanon) Ensuring valid special identity cards for children of Palestinian fathers who are neither registered as refugees by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in Lebanon nor recognised as such by the Lebanese authorities. Streamline the application and renewal processes, and ensure that such special identity cards are recognised as having the same status as formal registration by the Lebanese authorities. Continue to strengthen efforts to ensure access to quality health care, in particular for stateless, refugee and asylum-seeking children, children of migrant workers and families in situations of poverty, by expanding the national network of primary health centres to cover all primary health centres in the State party and the accreditation programme established by the Ministry of Public Health. Ensure the right to compulsory and free education for all and continue efforts aimed at improving access to education by refugee, asylum-seeking and stateless children by addressing barriers to access to education, including inadequate facilities and funding.