(25 Dec 2014) LEADIN:
Nearly 30-thousand Syrian children born as refugees in Lebanon are in a legal limbo, not registered with any government, according to the UN's refugee agency.
This exposes them to the risk of a life of statelessness, deprived of basic rights.
STORYLINE:
Mother, Yasmine Hamdan, is taking her 11-month old daughter, Haya, for a check-up.
But what for some is a simple procedure has become increasingly difficult.
That's because at almost a year old, Haya is without a nationality.
Both her parents are Syrian refugees living in Lebanon.
They applied for a birth certificate months ago, but are yet to receive one.
It's an essential document which is needed if Haya were ever to return to Syria with her parents.
Without a birth certificate, identity papers or other documents, even basic things like getting married, going to school or finding a job can be next to impossible.
But her 26-year-old mother says the application process is daunting.
"My husband went to the Moukhtar (city hall), then he got back to the hospital, then to the Moukhtar again, then to the legal institution (nofous)," she says.
"Despite that, the Syrian government has not approved her birth certificate.
"We still have to go to the embassy. If we are late, we will have to pay around 100 US dollars as a fine."
In Lebanon, the process begins when a child is born and new parents receive a birth notification from an authorised doctor or midwife.
The parents must then take that, along with their own identification cards, to the local mayor to get a birth certificate for a small fee.
Then they have to register the birth certificate with a local government department handling family status records.
Finally, they must register it again at another office, the provincial personal status department.
Each of those steps has its own fees.
But Haya and her mother aren't the only ones finding it difficult to obtain a certificate.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN's refugee agency, only 30 percent of the over 42-thousand children born as Syrian refugees in Lebanon have birth certificates.
In this Beirut clinic, mother and Syrian refugee, Khadriyeh Hilal, says she's just given up on trying to register her child.
"My husband stopped working on the certificate because he had to work, and now he is no longer employed," she says.
"He wanted to get a certificate from the ministry in order to cross the Syrian borders when we want to return. He wanted from someone important to mediate in the process to speed it up."
It's a problem replicated to varying degrees in nations across the Middle East, where more than 3.3 million Syrians have found safe haven from the civil war in their homeland.
By law, they are Syrian like their parents, but without the paperwork to prove it, they could become stateless in Lebanon and unable to return to their home country.
"A big portion of parents do not register their newborns," says Mona Mounzer, a public information associate for the UNHCR.
"If these parents do not register their children, they will not have any legal documents, and after a while, it becomes harder to prove the children's nationality and get the basic services like education other services, when getting back to their home country."
Many parents begin the process but never end it.
A common reason being missing paperwork - such as marriage certificates - making it impossible for nurses delivering the child to issue the initial proof of birth.
Some claim the five-step procedure is too time-consuming for working parents who are unable to take time off.
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