UN committee finds Albania violated Roma children’s rights by denying birth registration News
Wolfmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
UN committee finds Albania violated Roma children’s rights by denying birth registration

The UN Human Rights Committee found on Thursday that Albania violated the rights of three Roma children by failing to register their births, leaving them without legal recognition and at risk of statelessness.

The three children, born in Greece to Albanian parents, could not be properly registered because the parents lacked residency status. At the time, the parents were only provided with documents attesting to the births. Parents without a legal residence status were not allowed to give their children a name on the certificate because they had no legal right to reside in the country, leaving their documents incomplete.

When they returned to Albania, the parents encountered additional obstacles in registering their children. Article 7 of Albanian Law no. 8389, states that any individual born to one or two parents of Albanian nationality automatically acquires Albanian nationality. However, in this case, as is common practice in Albania, citizenship is only granted once a child’s birth is officially registered. The children were left in legal limbo, rendering them unable to attend school, receive medical care, or access social services.

After exhausting all the potential domestic remedies, the families brought their case to the UN Human Rights Committee in 2018, claiming Albania had violated their rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). They claimed that due to their status as legally invisible persons in Albania, they are unable to enjoy the right to recognition as a person before the law, their right to citizens to take part in public life, and their right to be treated equally before the law.

The committee found that Albania violated the children’s rights under Articles 16, 24(1-3), and 26 of the ICCPR by failing to assist the three children in registering their births and acquiring Albania nationality. The findings also took into account the disproportionate impact the Albanian legislation has on people of Roma origin. It has been documented that due to their mobility and migration status, Roma people are more vulnerable to face discrimination and social exclusion.

The first ICCPR Optional Protocol allows individuals from a party state to file written complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee. Although the finding is non-binding, the committee emphasized that by becoming a party to the Optional Protocol, Albania has recognized the competence of the committee to determine whether there has been a violation and that Albania has undertaken the responsibility to ensure individuals within its jurisdiction can enjoy the rights recognized in the ICCPR.

Albania has 180 days to inform the committee about the measures they have taken to give effect to the Committee’s views.

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