further involved in the project or follow-up activities. The outcomes that lawyers and families
decided to pursue, and the strategies taken, were often very context- and situation-specific,
so varied quite significantly. This section provides an overview of these different strategies
and approaches and gives some illustrative examples from each country. The next section
presents some common trends and learning from across the different participating countries.
4.1 Albania
In Albania, the outcome sought in three of the cases was citizenship for the child, and in the
other two cases it was obtaining refugee status for the minor or family (ultimately leading to a
route to citizenship). At the time of research, Albania was in the process of reforming its law
and policy relating to civil registration, nationality, and statelessness. It recently amended
procedures to facilitate birth registration (2018), strengthened the safeguard in nationality
law for children born stateless on the territory (2020), and was in the process of adopting a
statelessness determination procedure (SDP) in amendments to the Law on Foreigners
(2021).13 However, some of these changes were yet to be fully implemented.
A key barrier identified in two cases where parents originated from Kosovo was the lack of
identity documents and insecure status of the parents at the time of the children’s birth in
Albania, preventing them from acquiring Albanian citizenship. In another case of an
unaccompanied asylum-seeking minor from Palestine, there were difficulties securing
documents from the country of origin, issues with the refugee claim, and undetermined
citizenship. In the case of a family from Afghanistan, the lack of birth certificates for their
three minor children, and their inability to acquire any documentation proving identity and
family links from their country of origin were key issues. The fifth case concerned an Albanian
national mother who had recently been repatriated from a camp-setting in a conflict zone
where her two children had been born (of different fathers both absent and presumed
foreign nationals), but never registered and had no identity documents.
In each case, the strategies taken were tailored to the child or family following a needs
assessment and collection and analysis of available documents by paralegals and lawyers. A
range of different actors were involved including the asylum authorities, civil registries,
ministries of interior and education, embassies, social workers, teachers, translators,
psychologists, NGOs, UNHCR, the police, and in one case the anti-terror department.
Families were closely involved in discussions with relevant authorities and consulted. The two
13
For more information on the legal and policy framework relating to statelessness in Albania, see
https://index.statelessness.eu/country/albania