Preventing Childhood Statelessness in the Migratory Context: Experience of Syrian Asylum Seekers in Belgium Justine Raymond Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/04 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion June 2017 Author biography Justine Raymond is a graduate from Maastricht University, where she obtained her LL.M. in Globalization and Law. Her thesis discussed the application of statelessness prevention safeguards to asylum seekers in Belgium. She is a Youth Ambassador for the European Network on Statelessness’ #StatelessKids Campaign and just finished an internship with UNHCR. She is currently helping with the translation into French of a book on international standards of nationality law. Author email justine.raymond@hotmail.com; j.raymond@alumni.maastrichtuniversity.nl Key words migration – statelessness – children – Belgium – Syria Abstract In 2014, UNHCR started a campaign to end statelessness worldwide by 2024. At the same time, important migratory inflows have been experienced in Europe as a result of the ongoing conflict in Syria, among others. In light of those events, this research aims at identifying how Belgian laws and their implementation effectively prevent statelessness among children of asylum seekers from Syria who are born in Belgium. It identifies stateless persons and those at risk of statelessness in the Syrian context. This paper then assesses how Belgian legislation on statelessness prevention at birth is applied to children of asylum seekers, depending on the parents’ legal status, as registered asylum seekers, recognized refugees, beneficiaries of subsidiary protection, recognised stateless persons, or irregular migrants. Moreover, it further identifies practical obstacles to acquisition of Syrian or Belgian nationality and monitors municipalities’ implementation of the legislation on statelessness prevention at birth. This paper concludes that despite strong existing safeguards against statelessness at birth in the Belgian legislation, in practice the proper application of those safeguards is impaired by administrative obstacles or the lack of expertise of civil servants who apply the law, which still leaves some asylum seekers' children born in Belgium at risk of statelessness.