Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Birth registration is, however, far from universal in many countries, especially in Africa and Asia.165 While weak State capacity is at the root of low birth registration rates in many of these States, other obstacles include: discrimination in birth registration procedures based on sex, whether the child is born in or out of wedlock, or the legal status of the parents; short deadlines for free registration; costs and other administrative obstacles to accessing late registration.166 Even a child born in the country of nationality of both parents may be placed at risk of statelessness because of such barriers. In Indonesia for example, a mother may face challenges registering a birth if the father is absent, especially if there is no registered marriage.167 Irregular migration and forced displacement of the parents greatly increases the risk that a child’s birth will not be registered.168 Children born in a country of transit are particularly likely not to be registered and are placed at risk of statelessness as a consequence. We cannot register children who were not born in Egypt. Some of us give birth on the way from Eritrea to Egypt. Some of us stayed for a long time in Sudan and gave birth there. We did not get birth certificates there. Here, we cannot provide the authorities with the documents to register the children. Someone told me we have to lie and say the child is born in Egypt to get the birth certificate. But they will know that the newcomers with older children could not have delivered here. What do we do now? (Eritrean woman in Egypt).169 Unless there are mechanisms in place in the country in which the parents eventually settle that enable the issue of substitute certificates (as required under both the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons),170 the legal relationship between parent and child many never be recorded. Lack of access to consular assistance from a country of origin is often a factor in the creation of statelessness and access to consular services is often impossible for those without currently valid identity documents and legal residence.171 Birth certificates issued by a country of birth are usually not accepted by the country of origin of the parent(s) without a process of legal transcription into the records of that country, which must sometimes be carried out within a certain time limit (and may even require travel to the country of origin). Without that process, the parent’s country of nationality is under no legal obligation to recognize the facts recorded in relation to the child. In other cases, parents must register their intention that a child born abroad claim the nationality of their country of origin before the child reaches majority; or the child must do so within a fixed period after majority. Equally, the child’s country of birth may require parents to produce valid identity documents or notarized copies of marriage or other certificates from their country of origin in order for a birth to be registered, which in turn depends on consular assistance for the issuance of those documents. 165. UNICEF, “Every child’s birth right: inequities and trends in birth registration” (Geneva: United Nations, December 2013), https://crvs.unescap.org/ resource/unicef-every-childs-birth-right-inequities-and-trends-birth-registration-report; UNICEF, “Birth registration for every child by 2030: are we on track?” (Geneva: United Nations, December 2019), www.unicef.org/reports/birth-registration-every-child-2030. 166. UNHCR and UNICEF, “Background note on sex discrimination in birth registration” (Geneva: UNHCR and UNICEF, July 2021), www.refworld.org/ docid/60e2d0554.html; Anette Bayer Forsingdal, Dianne Hubbard and Adrijana Corluka, “Birth registration and statelessness in the member states of the Southern Africa Development Community” (Pretoria: UNHCR, 2022), https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/97772. 167. Jessica Ball, Leslie Butt, and Harriot Beazley, “Birth registration and protection for children of transnational labor migrants in Indonesia”, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 15, No. 3 (2017): 305–25, https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2017.1316533; Cate Sumner, “Indonesia’s missing millions: erasing discrimination in birth certification in Indonesia”, Policy Paper (Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development, 2015), www.cgdev.org/ publication/indonesias-missing-millions-erasing-discrimination-birth-certification-indonesia. 168. Bronwen Manby, “Identification in the context of forced displacement”, Identification for Development Initiative (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, June 2016), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/24941; Bronwen Manby, “Refugees from generation to generation: preventing statelessness by advancing durable solutions in the Great Lakes Region” (UNHCR & ICGLR, April 2023), https://www.refworld.org/reference/research/ unhcr/2023/en/147712. 169. Quotes from: Bronwen Manby, “Preventing statelessness among migrants and refugees: birth registration and consular assistance in Egypt and Morocco” (London: LSE Middle East Centre, June 2019), http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101091/. 170. Article 25 on “Administrative assistance” in both the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. 171. Bronwen Manby, “Preventing statelessness among migrants and refugees: birth registration and consular assistance in Egypt and Morocco” (London: LSE Middle East Centre, June 2019), http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101091/. 44