statelessness determination procedure should provide for a shared burden of proof, the standard of proof should be reduced and applicants should be offered an individual interview.43 Moreover, information and counselling about the procedure should be widely disseminated in order to facilitate access to the procedure.44 Additional procedural and evidentiary safeguards for child applicants should be put in place, including ‘priority processing of their claims, provision of appropriately trained legal representatives, interviewers and interpreters as well as the assumption of a greater share of the burden of proof by the State’.45 Government officials who may come in contact with stateless persons through their regular work (for example, social services or immigration control) should be trained to identify potential applicants and should refer them to the determination procedure.46 Finally, authorities involved in the identification of stateless persons should be provided with training on statelessness and the human rights of stateless persons.47 Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness in Germany 24. As a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 7), Germany is obliged to immediately register all new-borns on its territory. However, there is evidence that new-borns of refugee parents living in initial reception facilities and emergency shelters in the country are not receiving birth certificates.48 According to article 9 para 2 of the Civil Status Act, they can be issued a birth certificate; or in situations where documentation required to issue birth certificates is lacking (such as the parents documents), a certified extract from the birth registry can be issued upon the parents taking an oath.49 However, the decision is at discretion by the officer. Refugees and undocumented migrants face problems to certify the birth of their child due to missing documents (marriage certificate, birth certificate etc.). Though birth registration is not synonymous to statelessness, it is fundamental to acquiring a nationality and preventing statelessness. 25. Moreover, if parents cannot provide the required documents, such as a marriage certificate, the child is only registered with the mother’s name on the birth certificate. There have been incidents in which parents have rejected such birth certificates or extracts, as the nationality laws of their home country require the father’s name to be registered in the birth certificate.50 As discussed below, for Syrian refugees for example, due to the gender discriminatory nature of Syrian nationality law, the noninclusion of the father’s name on the certificate is likely to result in the child being denied Syrian nationality. 26. A further major barrier to birth registration for undocumented or irregular migrants is the requirement of civil registry officials to communicate the identification of such persons to the immigration authorities. Many undocumented migrants therefore fear contacting birth registry officials due to their insecure immigration status. Barriers to birth registration in practice for some groups in Germany has been raised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child.51 43 Ibid, paras. 71, 89-93. Ibid, para 68; UNHCR, Good Practices Paper – Action 6, p. 5. 45 UNHCR, Statelessness Handbook, para 119. 46 UNHCR, Good Practices Paper – Action 6, p. 4. 47 Although Colombia only granted statelessness status to one individual in 2016, it is of note that Colombia’s provision of a threeyear travel document to those it identifies as stateless surpasses the one-year travel document duration suggested in the 1954 Convention. 48 Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte, Die Politik muss dafür sorgen, dass Kinder von Geflüchteten Geburtsurkunden erhalten, 1 June 2016. Available at: http://www.institut-fuer-menschenrechte.de/aktuell/news/meldung/article/die-politik-muss-dafuersorgen-dass-kinder-von-gefluechteten-geburtsurkunden-erhalten 49 §9 Abs 2; §55 Abs 1 Punkt 1, 4; Personenstandsgesetz vom 19. Februar 2007 (BGBl 2007 I, 122), zuletzt geändert durch Artikel 2 Absatz 2 des Gesetzes vom 20. Juli 2017 (BGBl 2017 I, 2787) [Civil Status Act] 44 50 Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte, ‚Die Politik muss dafür sorgen, dass Kinder von Geflüchteten Geburtsurkunden erhalten‘ (Press release, 1 June 2016) <http://www.institut-fuer-menschenrechte.de/aktuell/news/meldung/article/die-politik-muss-dafuersorgen-dass-kinder-von-gefluechteten-geburtsurkunden-erhalten/; BT-Drucksache 18/9163 of 13 July 2016 51 Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations on the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Germany, 6