• Advocate for birth registration without any fees.21 Where fees are in place for late or delayed birth registration, advocate for waivers for the forcibly displaced and stateless people who cannot afford such fees. • Support authorities to provide flexible birth registration services to address barriers to birth registration for forcibly displaced and stateless persons. Birth registration legislation should allow for alternative forms of documentary evidence (such as refugee registration certificates) and witness statements to permit registration where forcibly displaced and stateless persons do not have legal proof of identity.22 • Where needed to address specific barriers, advocate for specific guidance to ensure birth registration of asylum-seekers, refugees, IDPs, stateless persons, persons of undetermined nationality, nomadic populations and undocumented migrants, irrespective of whether these populations have legal residency status.23 Advocate for registrars to be authorized to implement special procedures to reach marginalized populations, including those who reside in remote locations and/or have limitations on their freedom of movement. • Advocate for and support flexible and affordable procedures for delayed and late registration, through which older children and adults who were not registered at birth can be registered and obtain birth certificates. • Advocate for procedures to register the birth of foundlings (abandoned children of unknown parentage).24 • Advocate for policies which ensure that children are not denied access to basic rights and basic services, including school or health services, due to lack of a birth certificate. • Advocate for birth registration data and processes to respect data protection principles, including being firewalled from immigration enforcement procedures or other punitive measures against parents or children. 21 22 23 24 25 14 Strengthen accessibility of birth registration services • Support authorities to decentralize birth registration services and ensure that services are sufficient in number to address the needs of all population in areas hosting forcibly displaced and/or stateless populations.25 • Assess practical obstacles that prevent forcibly displaced or stateless children from being registered at birth, for example distance from a registration centre, or administrative or language barriers. Assess the resources and capacity of civil registration authorities within the targeted country/area. • Support authorities to scale up and make accessible birth registration services in locations hosting forcibly displaced or stateless persons. This could include using cell phone registration technologies, supporting mobile birth registration programmes, providing translation assistance, or reinforcing capacity to issue birth notifications. • Together with UNICEF and other partners, support the planning, costing and leveraging of additional financial support to civil registration, to scale up services in locations hosting forcibly displaced and stateless persons. • In partnership with other actors, support digitalization of birth registration systems to increase accessibility of birth registration services (see below). Where manual registries are being digitalized, provide additional capacity to the civil registration authorities to digitize birth registration records for forcibly displaced and stateless persons. • Ensure administrative personnel, judicial and security actors, and health-care professionals (including birth attendants) are trained and aware of the importance of birth registration for forcibly displaced and stateless persons and know about specific barriers and how to address them. • Support legal aid to help forcibly displaced or stateless persons in complex situations access birth registration. Ibid., paras. 36, 37. Ibid., para. 264. Ibid., para. 299. Ibid., para. 289. Ibid. Birth registration of forcibly displaced and stateless persons