Back to Contents Interview with Mrs Katherine Harbord on October 13, 2022 Asylos: My first question relates to the legal and policy framework and its implementation in Lebanon. We found information on rights to nationality for children of stateless Palestinian parents. We have notably an excerpt from a UNICEF Lebanon report on the situation of children and young people in the Lebanese crisis from 2022, referring to complicated and costly birth registration procedures. Can you give us a more detailed description of the different steps it requires and the cost it might imply? Katherine Harbord: So I don't know what the cost is. But the reason I think that it's described as complicated particularly is because it's a very bureaucratic process, or at least to European eyes, it's a very bureaucratic process that requires lots of forms and authorisation and you need to get this form stamped, and then you need to go away and that form entitles you to another form and the back and forth. And because of the problems of the state structure in Lebanon, particularly at the moment, because of the financial crisis and other things that are going on, I think this just compounds the problems. So I don't know how many steps there are. It's been a little while since I last talked with someone about this, but my understanding was you needed to register the birth sort of locally and then obtain a form, take that to the district office and register it there as well. And then after that it kind of goes to be dealt with at a higher level. But I don't know the exact steps of it. It's quite a prolonged process. It sort of takes months rather than weeks is my understanding. But that also may be not because of inherent the process itself, but more because of the other problems involved in interacting with state structures in Lebanon. And it doesn't confer registration of birth. You need to do it like it's a requirement to do it, but it doesn't necessarily convert any benefits or status on the child. If you're a stateless Palestinian refugee yourself and you register your child, they don't receive, for example, Lebanese nationality or something like that just by virtue of being born in Lebanon. And once you have the wrong in inverted commas status on your registration card or your ID documents that causes problems for everything else whether it's accessing hospitals or employment or education. Asylos: The next question relates to freedom of movements. We found reports by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs that builds on confidential sources and informs us that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon can apply for travel document from the general security, but that requires an ID card and an UNRWA registration card. On the other hand, if this person acquires a certain nationality other than not Palestinian or Lebanese, the person is no longer entitled to the travel documents issued by the Lebanese authorities. Can you elaborate on this? Katherine Harbord: Sure. I last spoke about this perhaps two years ago with somebody that I knew who worked at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who worked in a fairly low level but processing these kind of queries, who wanted ro remain anonymous. Without pointing me to a legal paragraph, what they said confirmed that applying for travel documents requires an ID card and an UNRWA registration card. The problem is of course that not all stateless Palestinians are necessarily eligible to be registered with UNRWA. So if you are UNRWA-registered and you have a Lebanese ID, then you are eligible to apply for a travel document. If you already have a travel document from somewhere else, for example, an Egyptian travel document, of course, you aren't eligible for a Lebanese travel document. You must travel on your Egyptian equivalent or your Jordanian equivalent or whatever. So it's a solution purely for Lebanese registered, UNRWA-registered stateless Palestinians with no other nationality or any kind of travel documents. It also isn't automatic. So just presenting your ID card and your UNRWA registration card doesn't entitle you to receive these documents, but it entitles you to be considered to receive these documents. So it's possible and assuming there are no security issues for this individual, it's my understanding that these are granted, but it's certainly not automatic. And if you hold any other travel documents or indeed another nationality, then you aren't entitled to be considered for these. So it's a very small subset of 1948 refugees and their descendants only. If you're a 1967 refugee, it's technically possible, but my understanding from this contact was that ordinarily, these people aren't able to move freely out of Lebanon because of it's very difficult for them to register with UNRWA. Difficult to impossible. My contact was speaking about how it works in practice. I don't know what they would consider as a “security issue”, but I made the assumption this was a case that also the individual involved was suspected of belonging to militant, banned groups. So I assume he meant in that context. But of course, there is a difference also between somebody who is considered to be a security issue and that actually is a security issue. And I think I don't suspect the bar is as high as that. So although this was in connection with, like I say, somebody suspected of being part of a banned group, I suspect the bar in practice would be lower than that, not necessarily anyone who has come to the authority's attention, but I would imagine it could be expanded out to include kind of criminal concerns as well. But that is supposition. Asylos: Do you know the proportion of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who do not have registration with UNRWA and were still able to access travel documents? 17. Appendices 163