Legal Identity and Housing, Land and Property Rights of Syrian Refugees from a Durable Solutions Perspective Challenges and Opportunities Refugee women who married informally face considerable challenges. Proof of a legally valid marriage is required to register a divorce, and if a husband has died, or is missing and presumed dead, a wife must present proof of death to complete death registration which may be difficult to obtain.86 In these cases, documentation gaps can limit women’s ability to claim dower, maintenance, and inheritance.87 are many procedures “forThere death registration. The hospitals create many problems: they demand high [medical] fees and confiscate people’s IDs until they pay the hospital bills. All of this causes delays and then people face the risk of having to pay fines due to late registration. Refugee families with missing or deceased relatives are confronted with challenges for death registration, for instance when they lack proof of death of the deceased person and are unable to complete the procedures. Some refugees resort to registering these deaths in Syria using intermediaries or brokers, at the risk of obtaining fraudulent documentation. In Lebanon, high burial and hospital costs can impair access to death registration for refugees, particularly when medical facilities refuse to issue a death notification or release a body until the hospital bill is paid.88 In addition, death registration is not always a priority for refugees in host countries, especially as inheritance proceedings in Syria are considered to be inaccessible, and family property in Syria has often been destroyed or cannot be accessed. 86 87 88 NRC & IHRC, 2015, Registering Rights: Syrian Refugees and the Documentation of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Jordan, p. 23; KII for joint UNHCR/NRC regional research, 2020. In Jordan, it is possible to obtain a court-issued proof of death for a person who died in Syria, but the procedures can be complex and are dependent on the available evidence; KII for joint UNHCR/NRC regional research, 2020. KII for joint UNHCR/ NRC regional research, 2020. Communication with NRC ICLA Lebanon, August 2021. “ Syrian refugee in Lebanon Photo: UNHCR / Mohammad Hawari 14