The Syrian Initiative to Combat Statelessness 58 tional and Human Rights bodies. Regarding the procedures that could have been followed during the past years, the participants in the questionnaire indicated a set of solutions: - Conducting a census of Syrians in general and documenting the number of stateless persons within and outside Syria. - Involving associations and organizations in every geographical region in the process of creating mechanisms to document statelessness and lineage. - Organizing offices to register newborns in “liberated” areas, and their recognition by civil affairs departments under the regime control areas. - Electing a legitimate government. - Raising awareness around the marriage to unknown foreigners, customary marriage, in addition to the need to register children. - Repeal of discriminatory laws against women. - Civil records centers in the liberated areas should begin to register children as Syrians, regardless of their circumstances, even if these papers are not recognized internationally, which contributes to breaking the social barrier. - Obtaining internationally recognized temporary documents for children. - Establishing reliable bodies to document cases of stateless persons and descent, and to give them official documents. - Advocacy campaigns that support the idea of a woman’s right to grant citizenship and lineage. - Work on issuing a paper on the current law and working on its adoption by political stakeholders, especially the Syrian Constitutional Committee. From the procedures put forward, it is noted that the documentation process is one of the most important steps that must be acted upon as soon as possible, but it is complex and faces many difficulties: - Social stigma. - The lack of actors in this field. - Local councils refusing to recognize the children. - The military factions rejecting any change. - Non-recognition by the international community of the identification papers issued by bodies other than the regime.