DESK REVIEW ON POPULATIONS AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS Shuuseki petitions can only be filed if: • The petitioner is alive; • Must be a legitimate child (difficult to prove, because PJD who hold their parents’ marriage certificate are few, many such marriages may never have had certificates [for example, tribal and Muslim marriages may have had no certificate, and only witnesses], and for some cases the marriage of the first generation parents was more than 100 years ago); • In order to confirm their Japanese citizenship, the Japan government requires certain documents that most of the Philippine Nikkeijin cannot provide. As noted above, after the war, people were afraid of persecution in the Philippines. They hid their identity and destroyed their documents on purpose. Now, after 75 years in some cases, they have no documents to prove their Japanese ancestry. According to the PNLSC, the ways in which applicants try to satisfy the documentary requirements include: • The Muslim community has a city hall, its own office to certify or issue documents • Some churches keep baptism records • Witness statements • Death certificate of first-generation parents in the Philippines that show the parents’ names • Photos • School records • Certificate of Recognition by the DOJ-RSPPU as a stateless person Kokuseki kakunin sosho: Application to the Family Court to Confirm Nationality Kokuseki kakunin sosho (こくせきかくにんそしょう 【国籍確認訴訟】 ) is a suit before the Family Court (katei saibansho 【家庭裁判所】 ). It is an adversarial procedure in which the government is represented by the Ministry of Justice Representative in opposition to the petitioner. The hearings can take years, and the government is more likely to defer to the Government Representative, so very few such cases succeed. For this reason, this procedure has not been pursued in the case of Chinese and Philippine War Orphans.243 243 82 Based on initial consultations with PNLC, 15 June 2020. UNHCR / April 2021