Exploring the Interface Between Birth Registration and Citizenship Determination: A Scoping Study in Seven Countries in Southern Africa or civil registrars are unaware of these exceptions to the general rules on documentation, children may go unregistered, which in some instances can put children at risk of statelessness. In some countries (e.g., South Africa), civil registration authorities are required by law to report “irregular”45 migrants to the immigration authorities. As a result, such migrants may not register their children because they fear repercussions. To ensure the protection of children’s rights to birth registration and citizenship, and to achieve universal birth registration, the civil registration system should not be used as an enforcement tool for immigration laws. For children born outside of their parents’ country of citizenship, a lack of birth registration can lead to a risk of statelessness. First, registration upon returning home may be complicated by a lack of documentation from the country in which the child was born. Second, if the parents do not apply for birth registration when they return to their home country, children born abroad may lack documentation to prove citizenship by descent and therefore be at risk of statelessness. This again reinforces the importance of universal birth registration and ensuring all children can be registered in the country where they are born. ii. Lack of knowledge among civil registrars can result in flawed citizenship determinations Citizenship laws can be complex, particularly in countries that follow some form of the principle of jus sanguinis, as do six of the seven countries analyzed (see also Table 3). In addition, legal provisions on citizenship and statelessness may be amended and updated. A determination of citizenship requires government officials to have in-depth and up-todate knowledge of their own country’s citizenship laws, as well as the citizenship laws of other countries. It also requires knowledge about whether the country has adopted legal safeguards to prevent statelessness by domesticating, for example, provisions regarding granting of nationality if a child might otherwise be stateless, in line with the 1961 Statelessness Convention. These determinations require officials to verify the authenticity of documents and completeness of information provided during the application process, assess the evidence against legal standards, and make determinations that affect the lives of children. Yet, despite the complexities, representatives from five of the six countries where interviews were conducted affirmed that civil registrars receive little or no specific training on citizenship determination. Namibia stands out, as the country has been making these decisions by committee—with trained members—since 2019. The lack of training can lead to a risk of statelessness, as civil registrars may also not implement the safeguards that countries have put in place. Automation of citizenship determinations should not be a substitute for training. In Lesotho and Malawi, it has been observed that the citizenship of the child is determined by automated processing based on the parents' citizenship, and there is no input by the civil registrars. This approach may bear considerable risks and lead to errors in the citizenship determination, particularly in complex cases, and where there are ambiguities in the law. Further, absent formal processes in law (as discussed above), there is no way to challenge these automated decisions. 20