supply of civil registration materials and by arranging a trip to study registration practices in the Philippines. This will help to ensure sustainability in the long term.112 Many lessons can be extracted from the innovative birth registration practices in ASEAN countries. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has commended, for example, the work of the “Flying Doctor Team” in Brunei which enabled children in remote areas of the country to be registered.113 The institution of computerised registration systems with online data storage in Thailand has dramatically reduced the time taken to process birth registration and made it possible for copies of missing documents to be issued instantly on site at any office.114 This move towards computerisation is also allowing new avenues to be pursued for the promotion of birth registration through Thai hospitals, by directly linking hospital records to the civil registration system.115 Village midwives can now play a role in procedures in Indonesia to allow early and easy access to birth registration.116 In Lao PDR, the Ministry of Security has offered training to village police officers to encourage them to support the civil registration process.117 The Indonesian Head of State and First Lady have taken on the role of champions and advocates for the campaign for universal birth registration in their country.118 And in the Philippines, a Memorandum of Understanding was settled between the National Statistics Office, Plan Philippines and a national television network allowing infomercials on birth registration to be broadcast free of charge on television and radio stations across the country.119 By sharing these and other good practices, ASEAN countries can further strengthen their birth registration systems and avoid leaving children at risk of statelessness. 4.3 Verification and confirmation of nationality Where an individual or group’s nationality is uncertain or undocumented, states can take action to confirm or certify their citizenship. This can also be a way to pre-empt any question of statelessness if the application of the nationality law to a particular group has been called into question by a third party. Such confirmation and certification of nationality may also take place on a case-by-case basis. Where an individual’s nationality is unclear or disputed, for instance due to lack of documentation, procedures can be put in place to investigate.120 An example of such practices can be found in Thailand – a receiving country for large numbers of migrants, principally from Myanmar, Lao PDR and Cambodia. The Thai government concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with each of these countries in a bid to address the problem of 112 Human Rights Committee, State Party Report: Cambodia, CCPR/C/81/Add.12, 23 September 1998; Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations: Cambodia, CRC/C/15/Add.128, 28 June 2000; S. Setha, “Birth Registration in Cambodia” presented at the 4th Asia and the Pacific Regional Conference on Universal Birth Registration, Bangkok, March 2006; “UNICEF, Record, recognise, respect – Report of the 4th Asia and the Pacific Regional Conference on Birth Registration, March 2006; S. Heap and C. Cody, “The Universal Birth Registration Campaign” in Forced Migration Review, Issue 32, 2009; Count Every Child: The right to birth registration, Plan Report, 2009; Plan’s birth registration campaign in Cambodia, Web update, accessed August 2010. 113 Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations: Brunei Darussalam, 27 October 2003. 114 K. Kaewdee, “Thailand Country Paper” presented at the 4th Asia and the Pacific Regional Conference on Universal Birth Registration, Bangkok, March 2006. 115 Ensuring the ‘first right’ online, Bangkok Post [Thailand], 11 October 2010. 116 Plan’s birth registration campaign in Indonesia, Web update, accessed August 2010. 117 “Birth registration in Lao PDR” presented at the 4th Asia and the Pacific Regional Conference on Universal Birth Registration, Bangkok, March 2006. 118 “UNICEF, Record, recognise, respect – Report of the 4th Asia and the Pacific Regional Conference on Birth Registration, March 2006. 119 “Philippines Country Paper” presented at the 4th Asia and the Pacific Regional Conference on Universal Birth Registration, Bangkok, March 2006. 120 This type of verification of nationality is a particularly important tool for preventing statelessness among undocumented migrants and victims of trafficking. UNHCR Executive Committee, Conclusion on Identification, Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and Protection of Stateless Persons, No. 106, 6 October 2006. In the same Conclusion the Committee also “Calls upon States Parties to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, both supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, to respect their obligation to assist in verifying the nationality of the persons referred to them who have been smuggled or trafficked with a view to issuing travel and identity documents and facilitating the return of such persons; and, encourages other States to provide similar assistance”. 17