Amira lived in Aleppo together with her husband and their two children when the conflict in Syria began. On several occasions, they thought about leaving the city, but it wasn’t until her husband’s disappearance that Amira decided to hastily flee to Lebanon. From there they would continue the journey on to Europe via North Africa. At the time of her husband’s disappearance, Amira was two months pregnant. Her son, Mohammed, was born in a makeshift camp on the border between Algeria and Morocco. A few months later, Amira made it to the asylum office at the borders' crossing point in Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, where she was able to submit their request for international protection. After their application got admitted for review by Spanish authorities, Amira and her three children obtained an identity document as asylum seekers, which includes a Foreigners' Identity Number (N.I.E.), a name, surname, date of birth and a nationality. While Amira and her first two children, who were born in Aleppo, are considered Syrian nationals, her youngest son, Mohammed, born on route, doesn’t have a birth certificate. So, what is Mohammed’s nationality?
There are 27 countries in the world with nationality laws that do not allow women (or severely limit the right) to transfer their nationality to their children. 12 of these countries are located in the Middle East, including Syria, where only men can pass their nationality to their descendants. Amira has no valid legal proof of her marriage. In fact, Amira and her husband never needed this document in the past. Many others like Amira didn’t have time to take their documents or lost these after fleeing. Nowadays, due to the persistence of the conflict and the displacements, many marriages are not formalised and many children are born out of wedlock and not registered.
Amira can’t contact Syrian authorities or go to the embassy in order to acquire a copy of her marriage certificate or process a birth certificate for Mohammed, as contacting Syrian authorities, from which she fled, could jeopardize her asylum application and, most importantly, her and her children’s safety. Without a birth certificate and a document proving that Mohammed's father is a Syrian national and Amira's husband, Mohammed is, like thousands of other child refugees, at risk of statelessness.
The vast majority of us are used to a variety of social, political and economic rights which we, as humans, consider inalienable. However, many of us ignore that these rights are guaranteed only when we’re citizens. Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to a nationality", today an estimated number of 10 to 12 million people worldwide are lacking citizenship and, therefore, aren’t able to enjoy basic rights such as access to education, healthcare, housing, work or the right to vote. These people are defined as stateless persons and around 600,000 live in Europe, including thousands of children who grow up without a nationality, without belonging to any place. Children who grow up being invisible.
There are several reasons why a child can become stateless. Sometimes statelessness is passed from stateless parents to their children. In other cases, a child might be unable to acquire citizenship because of a conflict or an incompatibility between different nationality laws, or can’t prove their legal identity due to the absence of a birth certificate. Statelessness can also be a problem for some children of refugees who come from countries with discriminatory nationality laws, as in the case of Mohammed. There is also a high risk of statelessness due to the succession of States, when new countries are created and older ones cease to exist, as it happened, for example, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Lastly, other children at risk of being stateless are foundlings, internationally adopted and children born by surrogacy. There are also a number of administrative obstacles imposed by some States, which, among others, hinder the naturalization process due to 