Assessment Report I NRC Civil status refers to an individual’s status as a result of a vital event. These can include birth, still birth, legitimisation, recognition of parenthood, adoption, marriage, annulment of marriage, legal separation, divorce, and death, when that event is officially registered or recorded with the relevant body. Civil documentation is any official document issued by civil registrars or any other authorised body (e.g. courts) that provides proof of an individual’s civil status as a result of a personal event. Civil documentation can relate to birth, still birth, legitimisation, recognition of parenthood, adoption, marriage, annulment of marriage, legal separation, divorce, and death. Legal identity in Syria is referenced in Civil Status Law, which compels all Syrian citizens to register all life events (referred to as civil occurrences).17 Legal identity is the legal civil status obtained through birth registration and civil identification that recognizes the individual as a subject of law and protection of the state.18 The concept of legal identity has been included in Target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals: “Provide legal identity to all, including birth registration, by 2030.”19 In Syria, the Civil Affairs Department of the Ministry of Interior, and its civil registry offices, hold the responsibility to register and provide documentation of births, marriages, divorces and deaths, as well as issuing identity documents such as national ID cards. However, conflict and the widespread damage and destruction of many civil registry offices across the country have limited access to the civil registration and documentation processes of the Government of Syria. Registration of vital events has been severely impaired in the areas assessed. Moreover, as a result of the limitation in accessing official civil registration, de facto actors are engaging in providing documentation and a variety of documents are circulating. As a result of the conflict, much of the population has had little access to documentation that was previously issued by civil registries, such as updated family booklets and national ID cards. Only 7 per cent of respondents reported that they currently have access to new governmentissued documentation (see Figure 5), and mainly only through the use and payment of third-party facilitators. This process was described as risky and expensive, with costs ranging from several hundred to several thousand American dollars. One estimate points to payments of as much as 7,000 USD for a family booklet, with charges including transportation, official fees and other costs. De facto authorities issuing documents were another source of civil documentation in non-government-controlled areas. Twenty per cent of respondents reported that they had access to de facto authority documentation, including ID cards, birth and marriage registration, and family booklets. More than half the respondents reported that they had either lost their marriage certificate or that it had been confiscated, destroyed or left behind during their displacement. Marriage certificates in Syria are important prerequisites to obtaining a family booklet, registering births and 17 See Articles 14 and 15 of Civil Status Law Legislative Decree No 26/ 2007. 18 This concise definition is taken from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Civil Registration and Identification Glossary (2010). https://publications.iadb.org/bitstream/handle/11319/402/Civil%20Registration%20and%20 Identification%20Glossary.pdf 19 Sustainable Development Goals http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainabledevelopment-goals NRC Assessment Report I 15