Many children born in Syria since 2011 have no legal identity because nationality passes through fathers

Many children born in Syria since the war began in 2011 have no legal identity. Nationality passes only through fathers, and many of those fathers are dead or missing, UN News reported.

Monia Ammar, one of the commissioners on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, spoke at a high-level panel in Geneva. The Syrian Government co-hosted the panel, and the Commission released a new policy paper on the issue at the same meeting. Ammar called the lack of documents one of the most serious consequences of the conflict's legacy.

The law at the center of the problem dates from 1969. Ammar said that when a father is absent under that law, the child is left in a legal vacuum. She described it as gender-based discrimination that is doubled for girls. She also said it is at odds with Syria's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The problem is especially acute because an estimated 12 out of every 13 people killed in the war were men. That leaves many mothers without a husband whose nationality can pass to their children.

The Commission has no precise figures on how many children are affected, Ammar said. It has heard from widows and mothers who carry their children and have no paper proving the children legally exist. She said these families face a wall of procedures and social stigma, and many give up.

Ammar welcomed the steps the authorities have taken since the fall of the former regime. She warned, however, that legal reforms are not enough on their own without changes in practice and culture. The policy paper calls for every child to be registered whatever the circumstances of birth. It also asks for alternative documents to be accepted and for nationality to be granted to children of Syrian mothers.

Syria's Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Hind Kabawat, spoke at the same meeting. She said a reform that would let mothers pass on nationality under certain conditions is at the approval stage. She told the story of Maryam, a mother from Dara'a who was left displaced with two young children after her husband died in the war. The marriage had been conducted locally and his death was never officially recorded. Under the outdated laws, Kabawat said, Maryam cannot pass her nationality to her children, so in the eyes of the State they became invisible.

Kabawat said desperate families sometimes register children under relatives' names, including maternal uncles, to get them into school or medical care. She said such families deserve support rather than punishment, and she called for a legal grace period so they can correct the records. She also said children of ISIL (Da'esh) fighters should not be held responsible for their fathers' choices. She repeated a call for countries of origin to take some responsibility for child welfare.

The reform has not yet been approved.