Friday, 19 December 2014
In Lebanon, Syrian newborns risk statelessness
BEIRUT: Nearly 30,000 Syrian children born as refugees in Lebanon are in a legal limbo, not registered with any government, exposing them to the risk of a life of statelessness deprived of basic rights.
It is a problem that is replicated, to varying degrees, in nations across the Middle East where more than 3.3 million Syrians have found safe haven from the intractable civil war in their homeland.
The life of a stateless person is a life without a nationality, without citizenship, without the basic documents that establish an individual's identity and give him the rights accorded everyone else. 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.
"If you can't prove your nationality, it means you can't get legal documentation, can't cross borders legally, can't enjoy any other basic rights that citizens of a country are entitled too," said Isabella Castrogiovanni, a senior child protection specialist with UNICEF. "So the consequences are obviously huge."
The United Nations launched a major campaign last month to try to end statelessness for an estimated 10 million people around the world within 10 years.
Syria's civil war is one of the major trouble spots, with more than 3 million people fleeing to neighboring countries to escape the bloodshed. For Syrian refugee women who give birth, acquiring the legal documentation with the local government is a chief concern. And yet, an estimated 70 percent of the 42,000 children born to Syrian parents in Lebanon since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011 remain off the books, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
That figure only relates to the 1.1 million refugees registered with UNHCR. Lebanese officials estimate there are another 500,000 unregistered Syrians in the country. It is not known how many children have been born among that population, but whatever the number, they likely have an even lower rate of registration.
The daily hardships of life as a refugee keep many Syrian parents from registering their newborns: no money, no documents, little time off from work. The process is complicated, with multiple steps that require travel from one government office to another, money for fees and, most importantly, a slew of documents. Without the parents' marriage license, for example, the birth of a child cannot be registered. But many Syrians had to flee their homeland on short notice and so left legal papers behind, or their papers were destroyed along with their homes.
At a natal clinic in a run-down neighborhood in south Beirut on a recent dreary December morning, around a dozen Syrian mothers with children in tow sat on green plastic chairs waiting for a checkup with the resident midwife. Most of the women said they were aware of the need to register their newborn, but only around half of them had.
Outside, one mother named Khawla from the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria cradled her newborn son in her arms as her curly-haired two-year-old, Mohammed, stomped around the damp pavement.
"It took us eight months to register Mohammed. We're thinking we may not register him," she said, nodding at her baby boy, Yousef, asleep in a bundle of clothing in her arms. "My husband works from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day in a grocery store, so he doesn't have time to go through the whole process. We're waiting for a miracle to register Yousef."
For another young mother, who gave her name as Zeinab, the barrier to registering was with the paperwork required by Lebanese authorities.
"I want to register my two youngest," she said. "The problem is they asked for documents from Syria, but we can't go back."
Both women declined to give their last names out of fear of causing trouble with Lebanese authorities.
In Lebanon, the process begins when the child is born and new parents receive a birth notification from an authorized 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.
The haphazard conditions of refugee life add complications. If the parents married as refugees in Lebanon without getting the proper papers, the process hits a dead end. If a woman gives birth without an authorized midwife or doctor, she can't even get the birth notification that starts the process.
"We're getting to the stage where awareness about it is more widespread, but the procedures are a bit difficult to understand ... and there are barriers that cause people problems," said Jocelyn Knight, the protection coordinator for the International Rescue Committee's office in Beirut.
"I think just because of the number of steps involved, it can be quite daunting for new parents and they're not really sure what to do."
The U.N. refugee agency and non-governmental organizations have been pushing to raise awareness among Syrian refugees across the Middle East of the need to register their children.
The situation is markedly better in Jordan than in Lebanon, for example. There, UNHCR says 70 percent of Syrian babies have been registered.
U.N. officials say progress has been made in the past six months to raise awareness in Lebanon.
"If you think in terms of the hope for these children to go back to Syria one day, if and when conditions allow, not having any legal document will make them like ghosts going back to their country," UNICEF's Castrogiovanni said.
Lebanon traffic police begin enforcing new speeding law
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The bodies of 20 Lebanese nationals killed when their plane crashed in Mali over the summer will arrive in Lebanon...
Education Dept. Issues Framework For New College Rating System
Beginning next year, colleges and universities will be judged on three broad criteria when it comes to meting out federal financial aid – access, affordability and student outcomes, according to a new "framework" released by the Education Department.
The new rating plan was first announced by President Obama in August 2013, but the framework announced today is only an interim step. Public input is being sought by Feb. 17 on a number of metrics.
Schools could be rated on a sliding-scale from "high performers" "in the middle" or "low performers" based on such indicators as whether they meet a certain average net price, graduation rates, student loan repayment and whether graduates get a job in the field they studied.
Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said Thursday that the process of designing the new rating system "is an important step in improving transparency, accountability, and equity in higher education.
"The public should know how students fare at institutions receiving federal student aid, and this performance should be considered when we assess our investments and set priorities," he said.
But The Associated Press notes the release of only a framework was "an acknowledgement of just how complicated it is for the federal government to assess more than 7,000 colleges and universities." (NPR's Claudio Sanchez takes a closer look at one college, Randolph, where students pay hefty tuition fees, here.)
The Washington Post says that "Mitchell acknowledged Thursday that the department is deliberating key issues: Which metrics will be used? How will colleges be grouped for comparison? How will they be given credit for improvement? What does 'in the middle' mean, the middle 50 percent or the middle 90 percent? Will each college receive a single composite rating, multiple ratings — or both?"
Anya Kamenetz of the nprEd blog has more details here.
According to the AP, when the president announced the ratings system last year, "it received immediate pushback from much of the higher education community and Republicans. Critics said a ratings system could provide a disincentive for colleges to accept students considered high-risk.
"Congress does not need to approve the ratings system, but it would need to pass legislation if it is to be used to parcel out federal financial aid. [Mitchell] ... said Obama is unlikely to ask for that during his remaining two years in office."
Berri assures hostage families that swap deal on the table
BEIRUT: Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri assured Friday a delegation of the families of Lebanese captive servicemen that the swap deal is an option under scrutiny for liberating their loved ones, noting that he had received positive information in that regard.
“Be assured that all Lebanese regardless of their religion, sect or faction consider the cause of the captive soldiers as their own,” Berri said, stressing that “the swap deal is being considered in principle.”
Berri told the delegation who visited him at his residence in Ain al-Tineh that he was coordinating on the issue with MP Walid Jumblatt, noting that he had received information that “matters were improving” towards ending the soldiers’ four-month-long ordeal.
The speaker reiterated his stance calling for complete discretion on the progress of negotiations leading to the aspired outcome.
ISIS and Nusra Front militants have been holding 25 troops and policemen hostage on the outskirts of Arsal since overrunning the northeast border town in early August. They seek to trade them with Islamist detainees held in Lebanese and Syrian prisons.
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Lebanon FM hails Uruguay for accepting 42 Syrian refugees
BEIRUT: Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil discussed Friday the Syrian refugee crisis with his Uruguayan counterpart, thanking the Latin American country for accepting 42 Syrian refugees from Lebanon.
“Uruguay has taken a positive step by receiving 42 Syrian refugees,” Bassil said after visiting Uruguay’s Foreign Minister Luis Almagro in the country’s capital, Montevideo.
Bassil hailed Uruguay’s move as a way of maintaining “humanitarian communication with Lebanon,” and said it set a good example for other countries to follow.
“We are in agreement that Uruguay’s, or any other country's reception of refugees... is not a solution for the Syrian crisis,” he added. “The [solution] rather lies in keeping the Syrians in their own country and this can only be achieved through a peaceful, political solution in Syria.”
Almagro in turn praised Lebanon for its “humanitarian approach” in dealing with the huge flow of Syrian refugees, saying many countries could learn from its experience.
Bassil and Almagro also discussed the possibilities of enhancing economic trade between the two countries, acknowledging the presence of at least 90,000 Uruguayan citizens of Lebanese origin.
The Lebanese minister said while his country imports a good amount of products from Uruguay, the size of its exports to the Latin American nation is “very minor,” stressing on the need to achieve relative balance.
Bassil also gave a lecture at the Uruguayan foreign ministry, titled “The Foreign Policies of Small States.” The lecture was attended by Lebanese and Uruguayan diplomats and scholars.
Is It Enough To Be Politically Correct?
Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Just A Little Nicer.
“ If I can start the conversation there, with a connection, I'm not invalidating that other person's experience.
About Sally Kohn's TED Talk
Political pundit Sally Kohn says we shouldn't worry as much about being politically correct, but instead we need to focus on being emotionally correct.
About Sally Kohn
Sally Kohn is one of the leading progressive voices and television pundits in America. She previously worked as a Fox News contributor, which was the motivation for her TED Talk. She is currently a CNN contributor and columnist for The Daily Beast.
Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, New York Magazine, USA Today, Salon, Politico, Time and many other outlets. She also works as a communications consultant, providing media and public speaking coaching.
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