Box 4. Recent UN recommendations concerning statelessness The CEDAW Committee and the CRC have urged state parties to ensure registration of births and issuance of birth certificates and reform gender-discriminatory laws to allow access to basic services and avoid statelessness. Recent examples include the following: CEDAW Committee recommendations for actions to avoid statelessness Concluding Observations to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (2017) express concern that while the law allows women who are Korean nationals living in China to transmit their nationality to their children, many choose not to register their children for fear of being forcibly repatriated to the state party’s territory. The CEDAW Committee recommends that the state party review its bilateral agreements to ensure that children born to Korean women residing abroad have access to birth registration and nationality without the children or their mothers being forcibly returned to the state party’s territory by third states. The CEDAW Committee also recommends taking retroactive measures for women whose children are stateless. Concluding Observations to Burkina Faso (2017) express concern that 20 percent of children are not registered at birth, which places them at risk of statelessness. The CEDAW Committee recommends intensifying efforts to ensure timely birth registration and the issuance of birth certificates as a means to facilitate access to basic services and to avoid the risk of statelessness. Concluding Observations to Kuwait (2017) express concern about the exclusion of disadvantaged groups of women and girls, including stateless bidun,a from basic social services, access to justice, decent work, citizenship, and access to birth and marriage certificates and identity documents and their heightened exposure to risks of violence, abuse, and exploitation, including sexual exploitation, forced labor, and trafficking in persons. The CEDAW Committee calls on Kuwait to ensure that birth certificates and other documents are issued to bidun women, men, and children as a means of preventing statelessness. CRC recommendations in situations of forced displacement Concluding Observations to Angola (2018) express concern at how low rates of birth registration represent an obstacle to preschool and school enrollment and are a root cause of child labor, child sexual exploitation, and underage recruitment into the armed forces. The CRC recommends extending the current national mass birth registration campaign to parents, including nonAngolan citizens, refugees, and asylum seekers, as this facilitates birth registration for their children; decentralizing birth registration to benefit rural and marginalized populations, including by establishing mobile birth registration teams; and introducing legal safeguards for children in the state party who would otherwise be stateless. Concluding Observations to Lebanon (2017) note how discrimination and practical obstacles precluded some categories of children from being registered, including Palestinian and Syrian refugee children and Dom and Bedouin children. The CRC recommends strengthening efforts to ensure that all births are registered, especially the births of children of refugees and asylum seekers, migrant workers, and historically stateless communities, including by streamlining documentation requirements and other barriers. The CRC also recommended reform of the legal framework on nationality to remove discrimination against women and provide adequate safeguards against statelessness. Sources: Concluding observations on the seventh periodic report of Burkina Faso, CEDAW/C/BFA/7, November 2017; Concluding observations on the combined second to fourth periodic reports of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea CEDAW/C/PRK/2-4, November 2017; Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of Kuwait (CEDAW/C/KWT/5) 1 November 2017; Concluding observations on the combined fifth to seventh periodic reports of Angola (CRC/C/AGO/5-7) 15 and 16 May 2018; Concluding observations on the combined fourth and fifth periodic report of Lebanon, CRC/C/LBN/CO/4-5, 2017. Note: a. Word used to refer to the stateless people of the Arab states in the Persian Gulf. 12 ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO ID: GENDER-BASED LEGAL BARRIERS AGAINST WOMEN AND GOOD PRACTICE REFORMS