THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD 75th Pre-Sessional Working Group (03 October - 07 October 2016) Lebanon Civil Society Submission on the right of every child to acquire a nationality under Article 7 CRC 1 July 2016 Introduction 1. The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (the Institute) 1 welcomes the opportunity to make this submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child regarding Lebanon’s compliance with Article 7 of the CRC, which states that every child has the right to acquire a nationality. 2. This submission highlights challenges in the realisation of the right of every child to acquire a nationality and the avoidance of childhood statelessness in Lebanon as a result of discrimination, poor implementation of the law and challenges related to birth registration faced in particular by the Syrian refugees, but also by other groups in the country. In light of the Committee’s previous recommendations to Lebanon on birth registration2 as well as those from the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women on the ability of women to acquire, transmit and retain nationality on an equal basis with men,3 and relevant recommendations issued by states to Lebanon during the second UPR cycle on removing discrimination from the 1 The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion is an independent non-profit organisation committed to promoting the human rights of stateless persons and fostering inclusion to ultimately end statelessness. Addressing childhood statelessness is one of the core thematic priorities of the Institute. The Institute has made thematic submissions to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the child’s right to a nationality and the protection of stateless children in a number of countries including Serbia, South Africa, Estonia, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Sierra Leone. The Institute has also developed a Toolkit to assist civil society organisations prepare submissions to the Committee under this theme. For more information, see: http://www.institutesi.org/ourwork/children.php. 2 Committee Rights of the Child recommendations 2006, CRC/C/LBN/CO/3 3 CEDAW/C/LBN/4-5