A/HRC/39/30 55. In Switzerland, interdepartmental management of electronic data helps to make birth registration processes more accurate and efficient, and births are recorded in an electronic civil register. In order to streamline administrative procedures, the country has implemented an electronic data harmonization programme through which common data is electronically exchanged between administrative registers. This has supported interdepartmental coordination on birth registration and other data, and enabled the simplification of administrative tasks across different service areas. 47 56. Plan International’s Birth Registration Innovation Team is in the process of developing an open source civil registration and vital statistics software platform, on the basis of United Nations standards, which will offer countries seeking to digitize their civil registration and vital statistics systems free access to this software. It is possible to adapt the software to each national context and integrate it with existing services in which civil registration and vital statistics data is already collected, such as health systems and population registers.48 B. Countering gender discrimination 57. It is critical that States overcome gender discrimination, particularly with respect to nationality laws, civil registration requirements, and gender-discriminatory societal attitudes, which are major obstacles to birth registration in certain national contexts. For example, gender-discriminatory laws imposing criminal penalties on unmarried parents who seek to register their children’s birth, and social stigma against unmarried parents and children born out of wedlock, are obstacles to birth registration. Gender-specific programmes are needed to ensure birth registration for children who are at heightened risk of missing out due to being born of single mothers or female-headed households, or out of wedlock. 58. Gender-discriminatory nationality laws must be abolished in order to ensure nondiscriminatory birth registration and address the root causes of statelessness. In particular, women and men should be able equally to confer citizenship on their children. 59. Specific legal provisions and policy changes are needed in many countries to ensure the registration of intersex children, who are at risk of non-registration, discrimination and discriminatory medical practices. Sex registration laws should include provisions for an intersex category to be noted on birth registration forms, such as an “I” or other third category symbol in addition to “M” or “F”. It should also be possible to delay the sex registration of intersex children on their birth certificate with no fixed time limit, until the child is able to make an informed decision and voluntarily register under the “M” or “F” category or another category. C. Protecting children with disabilities 60. To support the birth registration and protection of newborn children with disabilities, States must take steps to combat the social stigma and discrimination that they face, and raise awareness about their rights. It is also important that parents, government officials, religious leaders and medical personnel are informed about the importance of birth registration for children with disabilities and the role that it plays in the fulfilment of their other rights. 61. Information about birth registration should be made accessible to persons with disabilities, and available in alternative formats and multiple languages, to ensure that parents with disabilities can access this information. Discriminatory laws, policies and practices that restrict the registration of births of children with disabilities in any way, or 47 48 12 Submission from Switzerland. UNHCR, “Ensuring birth registration for the prevention of statelessness” (2017); and submission from Plan International.