Convention on the Rights of the Child prescribes that “every child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name [and] the right to acquire a nationality […].”21 Ukraine has ratified both of those treaties.22 The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, in Article 9, grants “women equal rights with men to acquire, change or retain their nationality” and prescribes that “State Parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children”.23 For the issue of access to personal documents it is also important to note that Ukraine has acceded to both statelessness conventions – the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons24 and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.25 Recommendations from the UN treaty bodies In the past few years a number of United Nations (UN) treaty bodies have recommended that the Ukrainian authorities ensure everyone is recognized as a person before the law. In 2011, the Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the Ukrainian authorities to “adopt positive incentives so as to ensure that free and compulsory birth registration is effectively made available to all children, regardless of ethnicity and social background”.26 The Committee also called upon the Ukrainian authorities “to intensify [...] awareness-raising campaigns to encourage and ensure the registration of all Roma children”.27 In 2013, during its latest review of Ukraine, the Human Rights Committee welcomed the adoption of the Strategy but remained concerned because of the difficulties Roma still experience in accessing their personal documents. The Committee recommended the state to “remove any obstacles, including administrative, to ensure that all Roma are provided with personal documents, including birth certificates, which are necessary for them to have access to their basic rights”.28 21 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Rights of the Child, 20 November 1989, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1577, p. 3. 22 Ukraine ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. Data about the status of ratification from: “View the ratification status by the country or by the treaty”, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, <http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx>. 23 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 18 December 1979, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1249, p. 13. Ukraine ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1981. 24 UN General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 28 September 1954, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 360, p. 117, accession on 25 March 2013. 25 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 30 August 1961, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 989, p. 175, accession on 25 March 2013. 26 Consideration of reports submitted by States Parties under article 44 of the Convention, Concluding observations: Ukraine, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 21 April 2011, para. 36, UN Doc. No. CRC/C/UKR/CO/3-4. 27 Ibid. 28 Concluding observations on the seventh periodic report of Ukraine, UN Human Rights Committee, 22 August 2013, para. 12, UN Doc. No. CCPR/C/UKR/CO/7. 19