Having a record in the civil status registry is a duty and a right for each and every citizen in one’s country. A number of rights and duties emerge from this registration, starting with having a unique national number that identifies him/her as a human being livign in some place on earth. Registration also allows a person to get an Identity Card, then a Family Card, and a Nationality. It also guarantees access to education and medical care, among social supports.
However, after the armament of the revolution in Syria, some problems related to the civil status of Syrians started to surface as a result of the impact armed conflict had on state institutions. The resulting situation led to catastrophic results, especially for civilians who have paid a high price given the waves of internal displacement people (IDPs) as well as waves of refugees entering neighboring countries, like Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq among others. As a result, IDPs and refugees have not been able to register their babies in the civil registries since 2012 since the necessary official documents from the Syrian Government are unavailable.
As a consequence, thousands of Syrian children are now stateless living in neighboring countries. And inside Syria, the acquisition of official documents has been largely affected by the division of governorates that are under the control of the opposition or the regime, as well as the changing nature of the political map. This situation is further complicated by the fact that all opponents to the regime are wanted by its security apparatus. Opponents are reluctant, then, to acquire any official document because they could find themselves in prison. That is especially the case, because civil registries are under the control of the regime in areas it completely controls. In Deir Ezzor, specifically, people are suffering from being unable to register their marriages in the state registries, which means that they are unable to register any births resulting from these marriages. The consequence is a stateless generation.
The Stateless in the Civil Status Law
A “stateless” person is an individual where one or both parents are registered in the Syrian civil registries, but he/she hasn’t been registered within the time allocated for registration. In the case of a baby was born in unregistered marriage, the baby wouldn’t be registered until the marriage is duly registered.
The situation of “stateless” people became even worse following the control of the self-proclaimed Islamic State Organization “ISIS” (aka Daesh) in 2014 in Deir Ezzor. A new kind of unregistered marriages emerged called “the dual marriage”. This is a marriage of girls to members of the Islamic State that depends solely on a religious (Sharia) contract. Here the real name of the husband is unknown, only the alias given to him by ISIS, such as Abu “so and so” the Egyptian, or the Tunisian, are used. In such cases, the marriage would only be registered in the Sharia court of ISIS. And any marriage not registered in the Sharia Court would be deemed a crime of adultery punishable by applying the Hudud (punishment as ordained by Islamic Sharia) on both spouses. This type of marriage has resulted in unknown lineage for the children whose fathers get killed or escape, especially since the family of the husband usually don’t know about these marriages. Therefore, the families will not recognize the babies and give them their families’ names.
To have a clearer idea, areas of control of both parties should be known. ISIS controls the following neighborhoods:
"Fuad Movie theater – the Party Residence – al-Orfi – the Easter and western countryside – al-Jubaila – al-Rashdiya – half of al-Muwazafeen – al-Hamidiya – al-Sheikh Yasin – Abu Abed – al-Huwika – al-Ommal – al-Ardi – al-Sinaa – Khasarat."
Whereas the regime controls the following areas:
"Harabesh – part of al-Muwazafeen – al-Veillat – al-Joura – al-Kosour – al-Wadi (which is part of al-Joura Neighborhood) and the Military Airport."
Consequently, those who get married in ISIS-controlled areas, or have babies there, are unable to register them in the Deir Ezzor registry, because it is under control of the regime. And those in Daesh-controlled areas can’t enter regime areas or escape there because they are wanted by the regime itself. This is the case of Abu Ibrahim (a pseudonym) who had his fourth child when Daesh entered the city. He already had three registered children, but cannot register the fourth. Instead, he had to pay 100 thousand SYP as a bribe to register him in Damascus registry without traveling there.
The same applies to the IDPs from Deir Ezzor who settled in al-Hasakah. It is impossible to get into Deir Ezzor, which is besieged by ISIS, or go to the capital city of Damascus, for fear of detention for refraining from military service. Even if the person is not wanted by the regime, there is the high cost of traveling by air. These are the only two choices to register children in the civil registry. As a result, from mid-2012 onwards, hundreds of children are unregistered in Deir Ezzor and its countryside alone.
Several citizens shared their suffering from this situation. For instance, Aghiyad from Deir Ezzor, currently living in al-Hasaka, got married in Deir Ezzor when it was under control of al-Nusra Front and he had his baby girl when ISIS entered the city, and he couldn’t register her until today in the civil registry.
Mr. Daher talks about his experience, saying:
“My wife and I are wanted by the regime. I am a conscript but I refrained from doing military service and my wife is considered an opponent to the regime. We married by virtue of a ‘Sharia contract’ inside Deir Ezzor and we managed to get out of the governorate after it came under the control of ISIS. We registered our marriage by mail, but we couldn’t register our newly born boy because we couldn’t go back to Deir Ezzor, which is besieged by ISIS, nor go to the capital Damascus, fearing detention by the regime. These are the only two places of civil registry for the population of Deir Ezzor. My son is one-year old today and he is not registered yet. My in-laws are living in ISIS-controlled areas and are unable to help us in the registration issue as well. On the other hand, my parents are with us in al-Hasaka, it seems that there is no solution for us”.
Samiya has a similar case; she says:
“My husband refrained from the military service. He doesn’t dare to travel to Damascus because he believes that he will get detained there. Consequently, our marriage hasn’t been registered and we couldn’t register our daughter. All we have now is a birth document and another paper from the headman”.
A Problem and Attempted Solutions:
One of the root causes of the problem is the loss of a mechanism for documenting the civil status of citizens in these areas, which in turn leads to loss of lineage and deprivation of civil rights, education, and other social services. In an attempt to solve the problem of registration in the state civil registry, a group of internally displaced activists who settled in al-Hasaka collected as many documents as possible with the aim of creating a registry for the Deir Ezzor population that were displaced. The goal was to archive and protect such documents from being lost. However, the attempt failed.
Furat explains her effort in this regard:
“I have tried with a group of activists to collect as many documents as possible and we tried to keep them in one place. Then a trustworthy lawyer offered to adopt this documentation effort. After collecting the civil status documents with the said lawyer, his house came under bombardment, and we lost all connection with him. There were some successful documentation attempts in the past by some charities that took care of widows’ families. However, all work has stopped after Daesh took control over the area. Part of the work was also lost because some activists were killed, others escaped, and some others were detained. In such cases, their equipment got confiscated and sometimes they deleted the documentation work saved on their laptops as a precautionary measure”.
Finally, this suffering that Syrians are undergoing inside Syria and in neighboring countries needs coordination between civil society organizations and the legal department within the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. There needs to be a quick and practical solution that include establishing special registries in areas out of regime control and archiving all civil transactions and documents. This will preserve children’s lineage as well as to ensure they are accorded their rights, starting with the acquiring the Syrian nationality and moving towards gaining them access to education.
Reem Zaytouneh: Syrian writer and a human rights defender in Syria, the views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Syrians for Truth & Justice. Photo cridet: Syrians for Truth & Justice (Thousands of civilians were displaced from Hasaka city during the last clashes at the end of August 2016 between Asayesh forces and Syrian army).