REFUGEES FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION UNHCR, APRIL 2023 and Uganda, the refugee identity card is valid for five years. For long-term refugees, the renewal requirements for refugee documents can put them out of reach, given travel and other costs. For more on refugee identity documents, see Annex 3 on international standards, heading on recognition of refugee or stateless person status. Birth registration Birth registration is in all countries an important foundation for the protection of children, recognised as a right by both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), and other human rights treaties. Birth registration is critical to establishing in legal terms the place of birth and parental affiliation, which underpins the right to attribution or acquisition of the parents’ nationality or the nationality of the state where the child is born – as well as other rights based on family relationships. However, birth registration in itself is not sufficient to resolve statelessness, especially if the nationality of parents is uncertain or if the child cannot acquire their nationality. Because refugees will usually be unable to obtain copies of these important documents issued in the country of origin from their own consular authorities, Articles 12 and 25 of the UN Refugee Convention (and of the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Person) also provide for the recognition of personal status and administrative assistance for the authentication or substitution of personal status documents that would normally be obtained from a consulate of the country of nationality (for more analysis, see Annex 3 on international standards – heading on birth registration and civil registration generally). The laws of all three countries considered in this report establish the right to free and compulsory birth registration, with no exclusion for refugees or children of other foreigners. Although Uganda provides for a fee for birth certificates, this fee is waived in the case of refugees. The legal frameworks in DRC and Rwanda are comprehensive and detailed in relation to the procedures for birth registration and civil registration, including for late registration of birth. The legal framework for civil registration is much less elaborated in the case of Uganda, although late registration of births is provided for. Despite the legal frameworks, birth registration rates have historically been low in all three countries. Nonetheless, all three have been making significant efforts to improve coverage, which had reached 89 percent of children under five in Rwanda, by the end of 2020. In Uganda and DRC the survey data is less up to date, but only around one third or less of the births of children under five were reported registered in around 2016/17. It is also of concern that even among those registered, many do not hold birth certificates. This especially a concern among refugees in both Uganda and DRC. Indeed, UNHCR reported in December 2019 that 95% of children aged 0 to 4 being accommodated in UNHCR-coordinated sites for internally displaced people in eastern Congo did not have birth certificates.45 One provision of concern may be where the birth certificate records the nationality of the child. The interpretation of the law of another country in relation to attribution of nationality to a child born abroad is a complex question, especially in case of refugees. It is not advisable to give this task to district-level civil registration officials. Moreover, a determination by the country of a child’s birth that a child has another nationality does not in itself bind the authorities of that state. UNHCR thus advises in general that birth certificates should not record the nationality of children, but that if a field for child’s nationality exists on a birth certificate, it should be left blank where nationality is unclear. 46 If this is the case, there should be a procedure to determine what the nationality of the child is, or what nationality may be acquired, or if the child may be stateless. A new format birth certificate introduced in Rwanda in 2022, however, provides for the nationality of the child to be recorded; there is not yet any guidance on how 45 See references with information on civil registration under country headings in Annex 4 . 46 Child Protection Issue Brief: https://www.refworld.org/docid/523fe9214.html. 14 Birth Registration, UNHCR, August 2013