 UNDERSTANDING STATELESSNESS IN THE SYRIA REFUGEE CONTEXT In Egypt,182 children born out of wedlock will face obstacles obtaining a birth certificate immediately following their birth; for a child to be issued with a birth certificate, the mother must show a marriage contract. Alternatively, and without the necessity of having a marriage contract, a father could approach the relevant institution and claim paternity of the child.183 Children born out of wedlock who are unclaimed by their fathers are given a different family name instead of the name they should have held at birth (that of the father, grandfather, and the family).184 Now a refugee in Jordan, Amina had married unofficially in Syria and got divorced after only a few months. She then fled to Jordan where she gave birth to the child of her divorced husband. She has not registered her baby boy. She then met and married her new husband in Jordan and got the Ketb Al Ktab (Islamic marriage contract). She recognised the importance of registering the marriage, but when she tried to, she was told that she needed to prove that she was divorced. She could not do this, and could only register her new marriage after making an oath in court that she had never been married before. She has not spoken to or heard news of the father of the child for over three years and therefore because she has made an oath in court that she has never been married, legally her child is unlikely to ever establish the link to his Syrian father.185 Mixed-marriages between different nationalities in the region are common. Some displaced families comprise Syrian national father and Lebanese/Palestinian/Jordanian/Iraqi mother, who had been residing in Syria before they were forced into displacement. In some cases, these marriages were not officially registered in either of the concerned countries. Lebanese, Iraqi, and Jordanian nationality laws contain elements of gender discrimination;186 women from these countries are generally unable to transfer their nationality to their children. Due to this discriminatory legislation, and the absence of the Syrian father, coupled with the lack of a marriage certificate showing marriage to a Syrian man, it may be particularly difficult to verify Syrian paternity and thus to establish that the child is a Syrian national. 4.1.3 CHILDREN BORN WITHIN CHILD MARRIAGES Child marriages187 present another significant problem in the displacement context due to the vulnerable and precarious situation families find themselves in.188 Child marriages are more likely not to be registered officially, and, as discussed above, registering births without a marriage document is problematic. The same is true for second marriages where polygamy is not recognised. In some situations, especially where the father leaves or is not present, this may put children at risk of statelessness. Again, without a birth certificate stating the name of the father and a marriage certificate attesting to his legal paternity, it is harder to establish the link between father and child which is the basis for acquisition of nationality. Whilst condemning the practice of child marriages, the CRC principle of the best interests of the child189 and that the 182 According to the Executive Charter of Law No. 12 of 1996 on the rights of the child and the Executive Charter, in addition to the 1994 Law No. 143 on Civil Status. 183 T. Badawy, Comments on Egypt’s Report to the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, 2007, available at: www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cmw/ docs/tarek_badawy.doc. 184 Egyptian birth certificates, passports, and national identity documents must have a person’s four names written in them. These four names are the citizen’s first name, his father’s name, his grandfather’s name, and his surname. 185 Interview with Amina, Irbid Jordan, July 2016. 186 See section 2.2 of this report. 187 A marriage in which one or both parties are under the age of 18. See more generally on this issue globally UNICEF, Ending child marriage: Progress and Prospects, 2014, available at: http://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Child-Marriage-Brochure-HR_164.pdf. 188 See for example, Save the Children, Too Young to Wed: The growing problem of child marriage among Syrian girls in Jordan, 2014, available at: http://www.savethechildren.org/atf/cf/%7B9def2ebe-10ae432c-9bd0-df91d2eba74a%7D/TOO_YOUNG_TO_WED_REPORT_0714.PDF. 189 See, UNICEF, Factsheet: A summary of the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, available at: http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf. 38 RESEARCH REPORT