In recent years, research exploring the nexus between statelessness and forced displacement has grown significantly. In 2014, a scoping study by the Norwegian Refugee Council and Tilburg University established that “stateless communities are often at increased risk of forced displacement [while] forced displacement itself may contribute to increased risk of statelessness.” In other words, statelessness can be both a cause and a consequence of displacement. Statelessness can also produce additional vulnerabilities for people navigating displacement situations.
However, much of the academic attention given to the displacement-statelessness nexus has to date focused exclusively on the situation of refugees. For instance, in their 2019 monograph, Michelle Foster and Hélène Lambert provide a comprehensive legal analysis of the intersection between statelessness and international refugee law. For his part, Jason Tucker has challenged policy responses to stateless refugees, which consider that “their refugee-ness should trump their statelessness.” Meanwhile, literature focused on statelessness in contexts of internal displacement remains extremely scarce.
Indeed, this focus on refugee situations over those of internal displacement is also reflected in the case of Syria, which “remains [the country with] the world’s largest displacement crisis”. A key work on the subject maps out the various profiles likely to be affected by (or at risk of) statelessness within Syrian refugee contexts. Elsewhere, scholarship has addressed the new situations and protection challenges for already stateless Syrians when they become displaced to neighbouring countries. Similarly, my own work has contributed to research on the experiences of stateless Syrians displaced to Europe. Given the lack of knowledge about statelessness in the Syrian context among asylum authorities in many Middle Eastern and European countries, these subjects are clearly timely. That said, it is important not to neglect consideration of dynamics within Syria, where much is also changing in the statelessness landscape.
In terms of newly emerging cases and risks of statelessness, a number of studies have considered the issue for children born to Syrian refugee parents, with particular emphasis on the “nexus between gender-based nationality laws and refugeehood that can lead to the creation of a stateless generation of children”. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reported that Syrian refugee children at risk of statelessness may be “denied access to health care and education, and face an increased risk of exploitation, such as trafficking for commercial sex work, illegal adoption, or child labour.” A spokesperson for the Agency garnered significant media attention for the issue by describing the possibility of a generation of Syrian refugee children at risk of statelessness as a “ticking time bomb”.
The lack of attention given to the specific risks of statelessness within internal displacement contexts is striking given that for much of the Syrian conflict since 2011 the population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has far outnumbered refugees. Even now, after people have continued to leave the country as the conflict has dragged on for 11 years, there are still slightly more IDPs than refugees (6.7 IDPs and 6.6 million refugees according to recently published figures). It is logical that many of those who go on to become refugees have themselves previously experienced displacement within the country. As such, this blog considers the risks of statelessness for Syrian children born in internal displacement contexts.
Why so little literature on Syrian internal displacement statelessness risks?
Part of the academic neglect for the question of childhood statelessness risks within internal displacement settings in Syria no doubt reflects the larger research gap on internal displacement vis-a-vis the more established discipline of Refugee Studies (accounted for by various factors, as described by David Cantor). The bias towards refugee contexts is perhaps also influenced by donor priorities. In addition, there may be several Syria-specific explanations for this dynamic. Certainly, the conflict inside the country presents challenges for international researchers to access sites of internal displacement, while it is easier to visit refugee camps in neighbouring countries although there is emerging reflection on best practices of conducting remote research in Syria.
Additionally, face-value readings of certain provisions within the Syrian nationality law may have contributed to the greater focus on risks of statelessness for children born outside the country. Although implementation of the law may be a different story (as discussed below), in fact a distinction is indeed made regarding place of birth – be it inside or outside the national borders – within the text of Syria’s Nationality Law. While it reads that anyone born to a Syrian father is considered as a Syrian citizen irrespective of where they are born, the gender discriminatory provisions within Article 3 of this law state that a Syrian mother can pass on her citizenship to her child in only limited circumstances, and significantly only if the child is born on Syrian territory. However, implementation and policy often does not follow the letter of the law.
Importance of Understanding the Law in Practice: Mothers unable to transfer Citizenship inside (as well as outside) Syria
In a context of authoritarian rule where key legislative provisions have been inherited as a colonial legacy, it is imperative to interrogate state implementation of the provisions, and not rely on the legal text as necessarily reflecting lived reality. Indeed, a UN report states that while “Syria has a safeguard in place to prevent statelessness among children born in the territory, [it] is not clear that this is implemented in practice.” Lawyer and consultant specialising in questions of statelessness Zahra Albarazi has argued that the possibility of a mother to pass on her citizenship to a child in Syria is in fact rarely implemented because “not only would it often be societally problematic for many women to try and register a child born outside of wedlock due to local stigmas against this, but the authorities are mostly unwilling to implement this provision, or unaware that it exists.” Additionally, heightened prevalence of sexual and gender based violence in the unfamiliar living conditions of internal displacement may result in statelessness cases for children born to rape. As such, gender discrimination may be a possible cause of statelessness for children born inside the country.
Given the patrilineal dominance in both law and custom surrounding the transfer of nationality to children in Syria, the fact that fathers are often separated from their families in internal displacement contexts can cause widespread challenges in the conferral of nationality for children. With the UN’s 2022 Humanitarian Needs Overview for Syria reporting that almost one fifth (18%) of IDP households are female-headed, the magnitude of this challenge is likely to be significant. In a somewhat rare example of focus given to the issue, a joint submission to the Human Rights Council by a coalition of Syrian NGOs has set out that “internally displaced women often cannot exercise their right to pass on their nationality to their children due to difficulties in obtaining the necessary civil documentation from the different jurisdictions, particularly in non-state controlled areas.” These children would be rendered stateless if it is ultimately not possible to document their legal identity. In addition to gender discrimination, there are a number of other factors that heighten the risks of statelessness specifically for children born in internal displacement contexts, some of which are likely exacerbated by the wider conflict dynamics.
Factors that can increase the risk of Statelessness for IDPs
Risk factors associated with internal displacement that make children particularly vulnerable to statelessness might include the loss of identity documents during flight, or inability to acquire new ones in the displacement location. For the latter, obstacles to completing birth registration procedures for newborn children are particularly critical. While refugee parents may struggle to navigate unfamiliar civil registration procedures in the foreign country, those living within internal displacement settings can face equal barriers. These may in some cases be even greater: for instance, it can be dangerous or practically impossible for IDPs to access government offices, particularly if this requires crossing conflict lines. Similar challenges have been documented in the post-conflict Iraqi context, where “[s]ecurity concerns, checkpoints and other practical constraints place near-insurmountable restrictions on IDPs’ ability to access the documentation they require to meet their basic needs and stay safe.” Some families may resort to the use of brokers to acquire such documents, while others are unable to afford the costs.
At the same time, in contexts of conflict-induced displacement, it can often be extremely difficult to isolate the impacts of internal displacement from other wider conflict impacts. For instance, issues that overlap and intersect with internal displacement are the presence of foreign fighters within the country, and the proliferation of non-state actors (both military and administrative) over parts of the Syrian territory. Often, civil documentation issued by these non-state actors does not serve as proof of Syrian nationality, and consequently does not protect against childhood statelessness. As such, internal displacement is often one conflict-induced risk factor of statelessness within an entanglement of other conflict dynamics. These include the destruction of civil documentation centres and consequent loss of records that often lack duplicates in a localised, paper-based system.
In certain ways, therefore, it is challenging to discern the risks specific to IDP families in such contexts above and beyond those of any family living outside Syrian government control. Nonetheless, available statistics indicate that children born to IDP parents would be at greatest risk of statelessness. Indeed, a United Nations assessment from 2021 found that the IDP population residing outside of sites/camps (an estimated 3.3 million people) “have the lowest level of government-issued civil documentation (44%)”.
Against this background, there is a pressing need to further study the risks of statelessness within Syria’s internal displacement landscape. Legal frameworks need to be interrogated, including the application of Syrian nationality law, and lived realities better understood. What is clear is that statelessness is not a risk for refugee families alone, and greater attention needs to be placed on IDP children.
Thomas McGee, PhD researcher at the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness in Melbourne Law School. His research focuses on Syria’s changing statelessness landscape since 2011.
This paper was written by the author for the 2022 Summer School on Internal Displacement in the Middle East – “Crisis, Displacement and Protection” – run by the Middle East Research Network on Internal Displacement, the Lebanese American University Institute for Migration Studies and the Internal Displacement Research Programme at the Refugee Law Initiative.