public parks.51 These children were reportedly born outside marriage, or born to a father
who subsequently went missing due to the conflict situation. The article described
challenges faced by mothers lacking proof of the father’s identity, whereabouts, or their
marriage when trying to register their children. Following this coverage, it was reported
by the same source, as well as the official Syrian state news agency in June 2018, that
the People's Council had approved the passing of a new law (The Law Regarding the Care
of Children of Undermined Paternity) to grant Syrian nationality to children of
undetermined paternity.52 However, there is a lack of information regarding the
implementation of this new law, and it should also be highlighted that such children
would automatically be recorded as being Sunni Muslim (the majority religion in Syria)
on the basis that the father’s religion could not be identified.
34. Furthermore, the conflict has led to widespread sexual violence and marriages to foreign
fighters, and children born from such circumstances are especially at risk of
statelessness. The UN Secretary General recently reported that women “who conceived
children as a result of rape faced difficulties in obtaining official documentation for their
children, placing them at heightened risk of statelessness.”53 Syrian women who married
foreign fighters voluntarily or under duress have also encountered difficulties registering
their children. These children are not entitled to their mother’s nationality under Syrian
law, and in many cases they cannot obtain their father’s nationality, either. Even where
children should legally receive their father’s nationality, many foreign fighters have died
or disappeared, sometimes without their wives knowing their legal names, making it
difficult for mothers to obtain proper documentation for their children.54
Kurdish Population
35. In 1962, the Syrian Government at the time carried out a discriminatory census, which
stripped an estimated 120,000 Kurds living in Syria’s north-eastern Hassaka governorate
of their citizenship, “on the pretext that many non-Syrian Kurds had crossed illegally from
Turkey”.55 Due to the intergenerational nature of statelessness, the number of stateless
Kurds has grown since then. Prior to 2011, UNHCR had estimated that there were some
300,000 stateless Kurds. Other sources have placed the figure as high as 517,000.56
36. Stateless Kurds in Syria were divided into two groups after the 1962 census, and that
51 Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, “Syria’s Fatherless Children,” 9 October 2016, available at:
https://en.arij.net/investigation/syrias-fatherless-children/ .
52 Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, “The Syrian People's Council approves to grant citizenship to
[children] of unknown paternity”, 13 June 2018, available at:
https://arij.net/news/%D9%85%D8%AC%D9%84%D8%B3-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A-%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%82%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%AD-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%8A/.
53 Security Council, ‘Conflict-related sexual violence: Report of the Secretary General,’ S/2021/312 (30 March
2021), para. 57.
54 Nisan Ahmado, “Kids of IS Fighters, Syrian Mothers Face Uncertainty,” 26 April 2019, available at:
https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/kids-fighters-syrian-mothers-face-uncertainty.
55 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion and European Network on Statelessness, “From Syria to Europe:
Experiences of Stateless Kurds and Palestinian Refugees from Syria Seeking Protection in Europe,” January 2019,
at 9, available at: http://www.institutesi.org/from_Syria_to_Europe.pdf.
56 Syrians for Truth and Justice, “Syrian Citizenship Disappeared: How the 1962 Census destroyed stateless
Kurds’ lives and identities,” 15 September 2018, available at: https://stj-sy.org/en/745/.
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