MAPPING OF THE POPULATION AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS IN ALBANIA of Albania, 2016-2020, there is a chapter dedicated to Civil registration and access to justice.61 These obstacles can be real as well as perceived. For example, fear of being charged a hospital fee for giving birth without health insurance is an incentive for some women to give birth at home. Or some women without documents may borrow the health booklet of a relative to avoid fees, and the baby is consequently legally registered with a different family. Moreover, hospitals sometimes fail to execute their legal obligation to report births to the registry office.62 If a family opts for later registration, the requirements are heavy and include providing the ID cards of both parents, legally registered residence of the parents, marriage certificates, fees connected to the administrative process. All these requirements can be particularly problematic for Roma, who may potentially lack ID documents, live in illegal settlements, may not be officially but rather traditionally married and have low-income. In any case, administrative practices vary from one place to another, depending on the willingness as well as on the capacities and knowledge of local administrative bodies and municipal officers. The problem is that administrative failures or breaches often affect vulnerable and discriminated populations that may not know their rights or have limited access to justice and limited possibilities of appeal against administrative decisions. As UNHCR describes in its Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014-2024, reforms of citizenship laws and policies, even if they go towards improvement, are sometimes difficult to achieve in practice. Besides, prevailing social views regarding ethnic, religious or other minorities may be difficult to change. Sometimes, governments merely lack capacity to undertake the fight against statelessness.63 6.1.2.2. Abroad Complexity and challenges related to birth registration are exacerbated in cases of children born abroad, especially when the parents live abroad irregularly. Children are then likely to not have their births registered, or only receive a birth notification which does not include the basic information required by Albanian authorities in order to proceed to the registration of their birth. Until December 2016, Article 41(3) of 2009 Civil Status Law stipulated that the registration of the birth of children born outside Albania is done in diplomatic or consular mission of the country where he or she was born. It added, “When this is impossible, registration takes place in the civil service of the country.” The law changed in December 2016, and Albanian diplomatic or consular mission no longer have the 61 The National Plan for Integration of Roma and Egyptian Communities in the Republic of Albania 2016-2020, pp25-27, available at: http://www. al.undp.org/content/albania/en/home/library/poverty/national-action-plan-for-integration-of-roma-and-egyptians-in-th.html 62 UNHCR, ‘Report on Statelessness in South Eastern Europe’, UNHCR Offices in Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia and Montenegro, September 2011, p28 63 UNHCR Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014-2024, November 2014, p8, available at : www.unhcr.org/54621bf49.html 58 UNHCR - TLAS / May 2018