Addressing Statelessness in the Syria Situation Preventing and Reducing Statelessness inside Syria Addressing Statelessness in the Syria Situation The conflict in Syria has precipitated what is now the world’s largest refugee situation under UNHCR’s mandate.15 Half of Syria’s population is now displaced, and many are separated from their family members and without basic documentation of their identity, family links or nationality. concerns raised by these gaps. UNHCR has focused on how various sectors of the refugee response as well as the response to displacement inside Syria can minimize these risks of statelessness, while also improving the protection, security and dignity of those displaced. Some 2.5 million Syrian children now live as refugees and 6 million inside Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance. Approximately 300,000 Syrian children have been born in exile as refugees, and 709,000 Syrian refugee children are under the age of four, having thus been born during Syria’s ongoing conflict. While the vast majority of these children are Syrian nationals, it is notable that Syrian refugee children acquire their nationality exclusively through their fathers. It is of particular concern, therefore, that the conflict has left one-fourth of Syrian refugee households with no father present to attest to the children’s nationality.16 These children are at risk of statelessness if they are left without legal documentation of their paternity. Adults displaced by conflict and whose documentation is lost, destroyed or confiscated may also face a certain risk of statelessness if it becomes impossible to replace such documentation due to the destruction of original civil registries in certain locations, which has been reported in Syria. The absence of this documentation also precludes the registration of subsequent divorces, deaths, marriages, and births—all of which can, in turn, also affect a Syrian child’s acquisition of nationality.17 The conflict in Syria has also led to forced displacement and protection risks among groups that were already stateless in Syria, including certain Kurdish populations. UNHCR has examined how conditions in the Syria crisis are impeding access to nationality, or the confirmation of nationality in the form of identity documentation, along with the immediate and longer term protection A birth certificate gives a child proof of its parentage, and thus its nationality. Photo: UNHCR / S. Rich 15 All statistics in this report refer to persons that are of concern under UNHCR’s mandate in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the Western Sahara and Yemen. 16 UNHCR, Woman Alone: The fight for survival by Syria’s refugee women, 2 July 2014, at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/53be84aa4.html. 17 See supra Note 4. 10