declaring themselves as Roma. The Committee is concerned that these people have limited access to basic rights such as health care, education and social protection.”23 Indeed, despite these positive developments and the aforementioned guarantees of the right to birth registration, data on the number of legally invisible persons and unregistered children confirms that the right to timely birth registration consistently appears not to be fully implemented in Serbia. 18. In October 2016, the Serbian Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Public Administration and Local SelfGovernment introduced a project named ‘Baby, Welcome to the World’, whose purpose is to simplify birth registration. The simplified procedure is regulated by the ‘Instruction for Implementing Administrative Procedures related to the birth of the child on the basis of all in one place rule’, which allows the registration also of children whose mothers24 are undocumented.25 However, this Instruction is not a legally binding act (it serves only as guidance for competent bodies) and its provisions are in contradiction to the existing and legally binding regulations. According to the existing bylaws—namely Article 5 of the Rulebook on the procedure for the issuance of birth notification and form of the issuance of birth notification in a health care institution26 and Points 10 and 24 of the Instruction on administering registry books and forms of registry books27—in order to register the birth and the name of their child immediately upon birth, parents need to possess birth certificates and ID cards, or, if they are foreigners, passports. Therefore, Serbia still has not created a legal framework suitable to ensure that every child is registered immediately after birth. As a consequence, children of undocumented parents are left without birth registration for at least a couple of months. Further consequences are a higher risk of statelessness and denial of access to rights and entitlements such as health insurance and social protection during a particularly vulnerable period. 19. Children whose parents are undocumented cannot be issued with a birth certificate upon birth with their names determined. They need to undergo one of the following procedures: determination of personal name, subsequent birth registration or determination of the date and place of birth.28 Each of these procedures often lasts several months, while in particularly complicated cases they may last more than a year. The child’s birth should be registered within several days or weeks after birth, not months or years.29 The Serbian Government, therefore, still needs to take further action to ensure that every child is registered immediately upon birth. 20. The lack of immediate registration may create the risk that some children will not be registered at all, which increases the risk of statelessness. Even if children eventually have their births registered (and subsequently have a recognised name and secure recognition of their citizenship), they will nevertheless spend a period of 23 Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observation on the combined second and third periodic reports of Serbia, 3 February 2017, CRC/C/SRB/CO/2-3, available at: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/SRB/CRC_C_SRB_CO_2-3_26579_E.pdf, para. 30. 24 The fact that father does not possess documents does not represent an obstacle for the registration of child in birth registry book. If the mother is a Serbian citizen and possesses all necessary documents, it is sufficient for child’s birth registration. 25 These changes, together with the amendments to the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure, were welcomed by the CRC, but the Committee also expressed concern regarding the number of persons who are not registered at birth, despite these amendments. 26 Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, nos. 5/2011, 9/2016, 16/2016 and 36/2016). 27 Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, nos. 109/2009, 4/2010, 10/2010, 25/2011, 5/2013 and 94/2013. 28 For more details on these procedures, see Praxis, Preventing Childhood Statelessness – Remaining Problems in Serbia, May 2015, available at: https://www.praxis.org.rs/images/praxis_downloads/Preventing_Childhood_Statelessness__Remaining_Problems_in_Serbia.pdf, p. 4. 29 See, for e.g., African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, General Comment on Article 6 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child: „Right to Birth Registration, name and nationality“, ACERWC/GC/02(2014), 7-16 April 2014, available at: http://www.acerwc.org/general-comments/#, para. 79. 6