UNDERSTANDING STATELESSNESS IN THE SYRIA REFUGEE CONTEXT  marriage’ in the Jordanian courts. Additionally, a penalty of 1,000 Jordanian dinars155 is imposed for the recognition of informal marriages which have taken place in Jordan, which is a prohibitive amount for most Syrian refugee families.156 There are some good practices in Jordan that mitigate this problem. For instance, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) offers cash-assistance to families whose only obstacle to obtaining documentation is monetary, and the government has offered several amnesties for those who cannot afford the fees for certain documents.157 Physical access to registration offices is also a problem. Often the registration office is too far away, and transportation costs are too high or security check-points impede the ability of the individual to travel there.158 This is another area of emerging good practice: the Jordanian authorities have played a pivotal role in facilitating physical access to documentation for the refugees by setting up Sharia courts inside the camps. These are empowered to provide various documents, such as marriage certificates, so that camp-based refugees do not have to travel in order to access civil registration procedures.159 3.3.2 LANGUAGE BARRIERS/INCORRECT INFORMATION A specific issue in Turkey is that Arabic speaking Syrian refugees face a language barrier when interacting with Turkish speaking government officials. In particular, district offices do not have Arabic speakers present, which makes it less likely that people will try to register.160 Moreover, the differences in alphabet between Turkish and Arabic cause problems. Turkish officials record the names of Syrian babies, using the Turkish alphabet. The ‘Turkisation’ of Arab names causes confusion later on for Syrian children, as the names may be spelt differently, and may potentially cause future problems when children are trying to substantiate their link to their Syrian father.161 3.4 REFUGEES’ COPING MECHANISMS FOR ACCESSING DOCUMENTATION AND CIVIL REGISTRATION 3.4.1 RETURN TO SYRIA To try to circumvent the problems of obtaining documentation, the Syrian displaced population has reportedly adopted certain coping mechanisms. One of these is return to Syria – or paying someone to return to Syria on their behalf – in order to access registration procedures or documents there. This is often a dangerous option and might also mean that the documents are obtained fraudulently or that incorrect information is given.162 Mohammed lives in Lebanon and faced many problems in registering the birth of his daughter as he did not have the required documents. His wife had initially tried to go through the regular routes but was turned away as she was questioned and told to prove that the child was hers. He therefore smuggled himself and his new-born baby girl into Aleppo amidst the fighting to get her a birth certificate as he was worried that without one she would not be able to go to school in the future. He eventually succeeded in getting her the necessary documents.163 155 Approximately US$1,400. 156 Interview with JCLA, Irbid Jordan, July 2016. 157 Interview with Danish Refugee Council (DRC), Amman Jordan, July 2016. UNHCR, Addressing Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa, supra n14, pages 16 and 21. 158 Interview with LOST Lebanon, Tripoli Lebanon, May 2016. 159 UNHCR, Jordan Monthly Update, May 2014, available at: https://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/download. php?id=6215. 160 S. Reynolds and D. Grisgraber, Birth Registration in Turkey, supra n137, pages 7-8. 161 Ibid. 162 NRC and IHRC, Registering Rights, supra n12, page 29. 163 Interview with Mohammed, Baalback Lebanon, May 2016. RESEARCH REPORT 33