Reacting directly to the below quote by UNICEF, Mr Ziad El Sayegh, Executive Director of the Civic Influence Hub in Beirut and former Policy and Communication Advisor to the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee [a Lebanese inter- ministerial government body formed in November 2005 to implement the policies of the Lebanese government towards Palestinian refugees in Lebanon] was the sole interviewee who considered that the birth registration procedure does not pose a problem:
“There is no complication across the procedure at all. We have a department of Palestinian refugees within the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities in Lebanon, and you have also another registration at UNRWA. […] It’s very simple. Once they register through the UNRWA, they should go also to have a kind of an official paper from a responsible [authority] within the region [where] they are living. After, it can be approved by the Embassy of Palestine of Lebanon and registered directly to the department of Palestinian refugees within the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities in Lebanon. […] a Lebanese citizen is obliged to pay […]- and it’s an official rate – for the responsible authority in the region to give him an official paper and after, go to the Ministry of Interior and Municipality to submit a request. […] we cannot ask the Lebanese citizens to pay for this and the Palestinian refugees will not pay. And for me, the solution is very simple. The UNRWA should have a special budget to cover this cost if any Palestinian refugees cannot pay for it. They should cover this cost. […] For me, there is another problem. I’m not sure that all the Palestinian refugees are registering their newborns […] Or […] if they are not registering it within the Lebanese state and [with] the Palestinian embassy only [or] at UNRWA only. There is a lack here of collaboration between the Lebanese Ministry of Interior and Municipality and UNRWA and the Embassy of Palestine. This is the main problem, the cost is not the problem. The problem is there is a lack of a coordination mechanism to make sure that all the newborns are registered officially in Lebanon to make sure that they are not stateless in the future.”
(Source: Ziad El Sayegh, interview record, 31 October 2022)
Katherine Harbord, a lecturer in human rights specialised in the Middle East whom we interviewed for this report in October 2022 reacted directly to the quoted excerpt below from the UNICEF report:
““[…] it’s a very bureaucratic process that requires lots of forms and authorisation and you need to get this form stamped, and then you need to go away and that form entitles you to another form and the back and forth. And because of the problems of the state structure in Lebanon, particularly at the moment, because of the financial crisis and other things that are going on, I think this just compounds the problems. […] It’s quite a prolonged process. It sort of takes months rather than weeks is my understanding. But that also may be not because of inherent the process itself, but more because of the other problems involved in interacting with state structures in Lebanon.”
(Source: Katherine Harbord, interview record, 13 October 2022)
The Jordanian Political Economist and long-time commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue Riad Al Khouri who was interviewed for this report in October 2022 spoke about the difficulty for Palestinian men and their children to obtain the Lebanese nationality:
“The procedure in most Arab countries, including Lebanon, is for the children to inherit the nationality of their father. [...] And this is the case with the refugees in Lebanon. If a Palestinian refugee woman marries a Lebanese man, then her children become Lebanese nationals. But if a Palestinian refugee man marries a Lebanese woman, then the children do not get Lebanese nationality, and this causes problems. Now about the birth certificate, I have no direct information, except to note that the [...]cost of birth certificates and the time they take in Lebanon is respectively high and complicated, including for birth certificates, but also covering other issues.”
(Source: Riad Al Khouri, interview record, 7 October 2022)
In a report published in March 2022, UNICEF Lebanon wrote about the registration of displaced Syrian and Palestine refugee children that:
“In 2018, the Personal Status Department issued a memorandum allowing for the registration of displaced Syrian and Palestine refugee children from Syria above the age of one year and born in Lebanon between 1 January 2011 and 8 February 2018. In September 2019, this waiver was further extended to children born between 9 February 2018 and 9 February 2019. However, children born after 9 February 2019, Palestinian refugee children from Lebanon, Lebanese children and children of other nationalities are still subjected to the complicated and costly birth registration procedures, including a one-year deadline for registration at the Noufous level, beyond which a court procedure is required to finalise the registration.” (p. 99)
(Source: UNICEF Lebanon, “The situation of children and young people in the Lebanese crisis”, March 2022, pp 99)
The UNDP office in Lebanon wrote in 2020 that:
“Stateless people in Lebanon are deprived of all rights including right to identity and to registration. Without active Government support, the current situation may lead to an increase in the stateless population due to the high likelihood among the most vulnerable to abandon the registration of their children after birth because of lack of financial means. As stateless individuals are already amongst the most financially insecure, these multiple crises are pushing many deeper into poverty and exacerbating protection risks such as exploitation, child labour and homelessness.”
(Source: UNDP/UN Lebanon “Rapid Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Lebanon”, 2 November 2020, p. 63)