are stateless or of unknown citizenship or that a child is stateless.35 There are no further provisions or guidelines on what is considered to be a document by which parents prove that they are stateless or of unknown citizenship, or that a child is stateless. Prescribing that registration of citizenship should be conducted based on such a document, where the content or a procedure in which it should be issued is unknown and unregulated, causes only confusion in accessing the right to nationality for otherwise stateless children. Therefore, although these children have the right to citizenship according to the jus soli principle, there is a threat that they may be deprived of this right due to the difficulties in proving that their parents are stateless or of unknown citizenship. In addition, both imprecise regulations and the imposition of additional conditions significantly undermine the prescribed safeguards against statelessness. 24. An additional problem arises from the practice of excluding persons over the age of 18 from acquiring citizenship on the basis of the jus soli principle, which is contrary to the Law on Citizenship and Serbia’s obligations under the 1961 Convention. It is possible to acquire Serbian citizenship on the basis of birth on its territory only up to 18 years of age, whilst persons aged between 18 and 21 are left without protection. According to the 1961 Convention, the timeframe for submitting the request cannot end before a person has turned 21. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that otherwise stateless children will have a chance to submit an application after becoming adults. This is important for preventing the risk of statelessness in cases of otherwise stateless persons without birth registration, or who spend their childhood with an unresolved citizenship issue. According to current practice in Serbia, if no one submits an appropriate request for acquisition of citizenship on their behalf before these persons reach 18 years of age, they are deprived of the possibility to do it themselves after coming of age. 25. The injustice of this practice is illustrated by the case of one of Praxis’ clients, Mejrema, who spent her childhood without documents because her mother was stateless and therefore could not register her birth. Mejrema was registered only after her mother’s death, but she was not registered as a Serbian citizen, despite meeting all necessary legal requirements (she was born in Serbia, of unknown father and stateless mother). Mejrema had never had a legal guardian who could submit a citizenship claim on her behalf. When her mother was alive, Mejrema could not submit a citizenship claim because she was not registered in the birth registry. When she was finally registered and collected all the necessary evidence, the competent body concluded that Article 13 could no longer be applied in her case, since she was 18 years and two months old when she submitted the citizenship claim. 26. Difficulties related to the acquisition of citizenship may also arise in the cases of children whose birth registration only includes information about the mother and not the father, where the mother is stateless or her residence is unknown. If the father is a Serbian citizen, the child has grounds to acquire Serbian citizenship by descent. However, in order for a child to inherit the father’s citizenship, he must acknowledge paternity with the mother’s consent, which is not possible if the mother is stateless, undocumented or if her residence is unknown. In such cases, the social welfare centre should initiate a procedure for the appointment of a temporary guardian to consent to the acknowledgement of paternity. However, in practice, social welfare centres refuse to take statements acknowledging paternity if the mother is absent, or undocumented. Therefore, even children whose fathers are Serbian citizens can have difficulties in acquiring citizenship. 27. Without proof of paternity, children of stateless or undocumented mothers born on Serbian territory have the right to Serbian citizenship based on Article 13 and the jus soli principle. However, the lack of prescribed 35Article 10 of the Rules on the registration of citizenship in the registry book, forms for keeping records of decisions on acquisition and termination of citizenship and form for a citizenship certificate, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, nos. 22/2005, 84/2005, 121/2007, 69/2010 and 55/2017. 8