MAPPING OF THE POPULATION AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS IN ALBANIA power to register the births of the children of Albanian citizens.64 So, in order to register the birth of child born abroad a child’s birth certificate must be obtained from the country of birth and must be in the form prescribed by the law: a legalised act, translated into Albanian and notarised. This document must be verified by the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Interior of the foreign country. It must then be legalised at the Albanian Consulate in the foreign country. This document needs to be translated and the translation notarised. Once this has been done, the child can be registered with the civil registry office in Albania.65 The bureaucratic requirements of this procedure are demanding and expensive, and often impossible to fulfil, particularly for undocumented migrants who give birth in foreign countries. Due to their own lack of documentation and irregular status, they often avoid giving birth in hospitals, and therefore, do not always receive birth certificates. In the best case, birth notifications are received that do not have all the information that the Albanian authorities require. Many parents do not manage to address all the bureaucratic obstacles linked to the legalisation of the birth certificates in the foreign country and travel back to Albania before having obtained a certificate in the form requested by the Albanian authorities. In such cases, these certificates are not legalised and the children’s births are not registered in Albania regardless of whether the parents are Albanian. This prevents the registration of their children’s birth and, because very often they are unable to return to the country where their children are born to resolve the issue, there is a higher risk that these children will be stateless. This problem is particularly significant for children born in Greece where the authorities do not issue a full birth certificate to those irregularly living in the country and secondly to verify it for the legalisation purposes with Albanian authorities that refuse to acknowledge simple foreign acts for civil registration purposes. 6.1.3. Subsequent registration As developed supra, many cases of risk of statelessness, whether identified or not, are due to a mere lack of birth registration and consequently a lack of identity documentation. Later, subsequent registration requires legal and administrative assistance that most of the concerned people do not know where to obtain and/or cannot afford. Subsequent registration is a complex and costly procedure in Albania, involving notably a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) test, a gynaecological exam of the mother, and the parents’ identity documentation. Although Albania adopted a Law on Free Legal Aid66 and subsequent by-laws in 2011 and 2012, that 64 Law Nr.134/2016, Dt.22.12.2016, Dt of approval:22.12.2016, Official gazette Nr.265, page:12012017 “For Some Additions And Amendments In Law No. 10 129, Dated 11.5.2009, “For Civil Status”, as amended”. 65 See the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website: http://www.punetejashtme.gov.al/en/legalization-of-documents&page=1 66 Law on Free Legal Aid, Law no. 10039, 22 December 2008, available at: www.euralius.eu/pdf/13.Law%20on%20Legal%20Aid,%20promulgated%20on%2012_01_2009_en.pdf UNHCR - TLAS / May 2018 59