27. It is also important to note that Germany has obligations under Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to respect every child’s right to acquire a nationality and to “ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.”52 28. In this regard, it must be noted that while Germany has a safeguard in its nationality law to ensure that otherwise stateless children would have access to nationality, this safeguard is not comprehensive, meaning that some children can fall through the cracks. One of the limitations of the German safeguard, is that it imposes a residence status requirement on the parents. In other words, the law requires that the parents of the child are legally resident in the country, for the child to benefit from this status.53 This requirement is contrary to the CRC, with the Committee consistently recommending that all children born on a state’s territory who would otherwise be stateless, should be able to acquire nationality, irrespective of the legal status of their parents.54 29. It is also important to note, that in the context of the large refugee population being hosted by Germany, the failure to register the birth of refugee children, or to grant them documents only in the mother’s name, can undermine their right to acquire nationality, particularly if their parents are Syrian nationals. This is because Syrian nationality law is gender discriminatory, and women cannot pass on their nationality to their children. Therefore, it is extremely important that Germany assesses the risk of statelessness of all refugee children born in the country, and ensures that those who would otherwise be stateless are granted German citizenship. Recommendations 30. Based on the content of this submission, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion and the European Network on Statelessness urge reviewing states to make the following recommendations to Germany: I. Gather and make publicly available comprehensive national data to improve the protection of stateless persons in the country and facilitate the monitoring of its international obligations in relation to statelessness. II. Put in place a dedicated statelessness determination procedure at federal level that meets international standards, good practice and procedural safeguards as outlined in UNHCR’s Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons. III. Take urgent steps to guarantee the right of every child born on its territory to be registered, irrespective of the status of its parents, including by registering the names of both parents on a birth certificate and removing the obligation on registry officials to communicate the presence of irregular migrants to the immigration authorities. IV. Ensure that the right of every child to acquire a nationality, as set out in CRC Article 7 is respected, and that all – otherwise stateless – children born in Germany, irrespective of the legal status of their parents, are granted German citizenship. UN Doc CRC/C/DEU/CO/3-4, 6, 25 February 2014 52 Article 7.1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 53 Ileen Verbeek, Ending Childhood Statelessness, A comparative study of safeguards to ensure the right to a nationality for children born in Europe, European Network on Statelessness, 2016, available at: http://www.statelessness.eu/sites/www.statelessness.eu/files/file_attach/ENS_1961_Safeguards_Stateless_children.pdf 54 See for example, UN Committee for the Rights of the Child, ‘Concluding Observations Switzerland’ (30 January 2015) CRC/C/CHE/CO/2-4 7