Thousands of children are born in IS-controlled areas are at risk to be thrown out in statelessness when terrorgruppens caliphate now wavering. Without valid identity documents, threatening a life in the margin for an entire generation.
Syrian refugee children play in a temporary refugee camp in Erbil in northern Iraq. The children born in the camps outside their parents ‘ home countries grow up without citizenship. Arkivbild.
Sara was born shortly after ICE made its major offensive in Iraq in the summer of 2014, and is now two years. Her brother Ali came to the world in the year, just days before the family fled from their village to the south of the city of Mosul to a refugee camp Debaga.
“If you showed them your children so they issued a birth certificate in their state’s name,” says the father of Mohamed, who refused to enter their children in the ICE system, to the Reuters news agency.
Free from terrorgruppens grip, they now face a new challenge: in the absence of the iraqi laissez-risk children to be without the right to education, health care and other basic rights. Inside the city of Mosul, which irakiskledda forces trying to reclaim in a comprehensive military action, has estimated that hundreds of children had to be born into statelessness in the over two-year-long ICE-rule.
it makes It easier not to have a birth certificate from the ICE authorities – terrorgruppens paper is at best useless outside of their shrinking territory.
the Situation is even worse in neighboring Syria, which over the five-year-long civil war has forced millions of displaced and large parts of the country’s population resides in areas outside the regime’s control.
the Iraqi authorities have certainly promised to register children who lack identity documents. But it will likely take a long time before the weakness of the iraqi state, able to restore the functioning of the authorities in the destination areas.
And the question is how you will treat all of the children born of parents who are, or suspected to be, IS-followers.
– It is those children we are most worried about. While I can imagine that the iraqi authorities on the whole, to register others as they learn to prioritise down the children with the ICE-parents, ” says Belkis Wille, Irakexpert at Human Rights Watch, TT, and adds:
– And what should happen with the children when the parents thrown in jail?
Although kurdish authorities have taken to incorporate unregistered children in the areas they conquered from the ICE. But several examples are available on the discrimination, ” says Belkis Wille.
” It has happened that they refused to register the child if the families shown up födslobevis from the ICE. So ngos has simply advise families to lie and pretend that they don’t have any paper.
the Concern is even greater for the children of the foreign jihadists who have travelled to Iraq or Syria to join IS.
” Under international law, all countries have an obligation to give citizenship to all children born stateless in their country. But if the parents for example, are russians or chechens, I can imagine that the authorities ask themselves why children should get iraqi citizenship.
In Debaga-camp, is working to try to bring about the registration of as many as possible. With the help of legal assistance from the UNHCR and the Swedish charity Qandil has so far been able to solve 175 instances.
” I hope that these kids will get an okay life. For they are the most vulnerable. And after they return (to their homes), we hope that the government and the international organisations will continue to take care of them, ” says the camp’s director Ahmed Abdo over the phone to TT.
the Facts: Stateless in the world
the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) estimates that there are at least 10 million people who lack nationalitetsstatus the world over.
however, It is difficult to collect reliable data because statlösa often live in precarious situations on the margins of society, outside the authorities.
the statistics Available from the authorities in different countries capture a total of 3.7 million stateless persons, in 78 countries.
the Countries with the highest number of stateless persons, according to official statistics:
Burma: 938 000
Côte d’ivoire: 700 000
Thailand: 443 862
Zimbabwe: 300 000
Latvia: 252 000 (almost all of whom have a permanent residence permit and have basic rights)
Syria: 160 000
Dominican republic: 133 770
Russia: 101 813
Kuwait: 93 000
Uzbekistan: 86 703
Estonia: 85 000 (almost all of whom have permanent residence and enjoy fundamental rights)
saudi Arabia: 70 000
Iraq: 50 000
Source: UNHCR
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