"The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents."

 - Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

European Network on Statelessness continues with the campaign “No Child Should be Stateless” aimed at raising awareness and promoting measures that would end childhood statelessness.

Registration of child at birth is one of preconditions for avoiding childhood statelessness, which is also a key component of  #StatelessKids campaign, but also a part of the UN action plan to end statelessness by 2024. 

We remind that at the beginning of March this year Praxis and European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), as members of the European Network on Statelessness (ENS), lodged a constitutional initiative to the Constitutional Court arguing that Serbia’s law on registers allows officials to deprive children of their right to a name and a legal identity by giving them legal cover for refusing to issue birth certificates. The law in question is a vaguely-worded provision that says registrars can delay registering the birth of a child in order to verify the information on the register.

#StatelessKids campaign and the initiative are part of ENS’s three-year pan-European strategy to end childhood statelessness. In addition, also as part of those activities, hereby we announce the upcoming #StatelessKids Youth Congress, which will be held in Brussels in the period from 11-13 July 2016. The Youth Congress will gather a group of 35 young activists aged 18-28, motivated to help end childhood statelessness. The participants of the Youth Congress will have an opportunity to talk about the statelessness issue with the leading experts and academics, UN agencies and Members of the European Parliament, as well as journalists, advocacy and communications experts on how to advocate for change.

This three-day event will be an opportunity for these young people to learn about the effects of statelessness and gain skills necessary to become Youth Ambassadors supporting #StatelessKids campaign across Europe

More information about the Youth Congress and application, at the link.