CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
longer than 90 days and that the parents have taken steps to seek to acquire a nationality
for the child. Czech law requires that parents have sought (but failed) to register their child
as a national of their country of nationality before the child will be recognized as stateless;
however, this is not necessary for a parent who has been recognized as a refugee.140
The impact of good practices in birth registration
Birth registration to help prevent statelessness
ANNEXES
55
RECOMMENDATIONS
140 See Czech Citizenship Act, Czechia, Act no. 186/2013, adopted on 11 July 2013, Section 29. (Note that
references in the Act to ‘homeless’ should be read as ‘stateless’.)
141 UNHCR’s Refugee Data Finder.
142 Ad Hoc Query on 2021.23: Statelessness statistics in the EU, European Commission/European Migration
Network, 2021, p. 11, (note that these figures did not include all potential stateless populations).
143 World Bank data shows 100% completeness of birth registration in Finland (2022). Completeness of birth
registration (%) – Finland, World Bank, (no date).
CHAPTER VII
Birth registration in Finland is universal,143 and there are legal safeguards that result in
most children acquiring a nationality soon after birth in the country. Finland also has an
effective nationality determination procedure to which babies at risk of statelessness
born in Finland must be referred.
CHAPTER VI
Statelessness in Finland is primarily migratory, and available data for 2024 indicates
there were 1,326 stateless people recorded in Finland.141 Finnish Government data for
2020 showed that the majority of known stateless people were born in Estonia (328),
Syria (234), the former Soviet Union (234) and Iraq (138), alongside unspecified numbers
known to be of Palestinian origin.142
CHAPTER V
Population overview
CHAPTER IV
Finland
CHAPTER III
Czechia’s birth registration law and procedures mean that nearly all children’s births are
registered shortly after birth and nearly all are issued birth certificates. These measures
help to prevent statelessness of children born in the country. The provision for refugee
and asylum-seeker parents to provide a declaration instead of the documents usually
required of parents is a particularly good practice, which facilitates registration of children
born to these groups.
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