“A child born in the war did not choose the
war, did not choose the enforced disappearance of their
father, did not choose their mother’s unregistered
marriage…Yet they alone pay the price – in
education, in health, in nationality and in dignity,” said
Monia Ammar, one of the commissioners on the Independent
International Commission
of Inquiry on Syria.
Ms. Ammar was speaking at a
high-level panel in Geneva, co-hosted with the Syrian
Government, as the Commission released a new policy paper on
the issue.
She called the lack of documents
“among the most serious consequences of the legacy
of the conflict”.
Syria’s social affairs
minister told the same meeting that a reform letting
mothers pass on nationality is nearing
approval.
The problem is especially acute
because an estimated 12 out of every 13 people killed in the
war were men.
‘A wall of procedures’
Under
Syria’s 1969 nationality law, when the father is absent
“the child finds themselves in a legal vacuum”, Ms.
Ammar said.
She described the law as gender-based
discrimination that is “doubled for girls”. It is also
at odds with Syria’s obligations under the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women.
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The Commission has no precise figures on
how many children are affected, she said. But it has heard
from widows and mothers “who carry their children in their
arms and do not have a single piece of paper proving that
these children legally exist”.
They face “a wall
of procedures” and social stigma, and many end up giving
up.
Ms. Ammar welcomed the steps the authorities have
taken since the fall of the former regime. But she warned
that “legal reforms, however important, are not enough on
their own” without changes in practice and
culture.
The paper calls for every child to be
registered whatever the circumstances of their birth,
alternative documents to be accepted and nationality granted
to children of Syrian
mothers.
‘Invisible’ to the
State
Syria’s Minister of Social Affairs and
Labour, Hind Kabawat, told the story of Maryam, a mother
from Dara’a.
Maryam was left alone and displaced
with two young children after losing her husband in the war.
Her marriage had been conducted locally and his death was
never officially recorded.
“Under our outdated laws,
she cannot pass her Syrian nationality to her children, so
in the eyes of the State they became invisible,” the
minister said.
Desperate families sometimes register
children under relatives’ names, including maternal
uncles, just to get them into school or medical care. Ms.
Kabawat said these families deserve support rather than
punishment.
She called for a legal grace period so
they can put the records right.
Grace
period
The proposal now at the approval stage would
allow mothers to pass on nationality under certain
conditions, “so that no child is punished or left
stateless simply because their father is missing, dead or
foreign”.
Ms. Kabawat stressed that children of ISIL
(or Da’esh) fighters should not be held responsible for
their fathers’ choices. She repeated the call for
countries of origin to take some responsibility for child
welfare.
Her Government’s aim, she said, is that
“Maryam from Dara’a will never again have to
wonder whether her children truly belong to the country they
were born
in.”
