CRC/C/CYP/CO/3-4 45. The Committee urges the State party to take measures to: (a) Allocate resources for ensuring that Turkish Cypriot children are provided with the option of receiving bilingual education, including in their mother tongue; (b) Promote, develop and ensure access to early childhood development and education, particularly for children under the age of 4 and, especially for children at risk of delayed development and socioeconomic deprivation, take into account the Committee’s general comment No. 7 (2005) on implementing child rights in early childhood; (c) Ensure that religious education is optional, taking into consideration the best interests of the child, and is conducted in a manner that contributes to a spirit of understanding, tolerance and friendship among all ethnic and religious groups as stipulated in article 29, paragraph 1 (d), of the Convention. G. Special protection measures (arts. 22, 30, 38, 39, 40, 37 (b)–(d), and 32– 36 of the Convention) Asylum-seeking, refugee and internally displaced children 46. The Committee welcomes the State party’s adoption of further amendments to its Refugee Law between 2002 and 2009 to further transpose the European Union asylum acquis and international protection standards into its national law. However, the Committee remains deeply concerned about the situation of asylum-seeking and refugee children in the State party, particularly with regard to: (a) Persisting and serious ambiguity on the interpretation and implementation of the provisions of section 10 of the State party’s Refugee Law relating to the representation of unaccompanied and separated children in the asylum process, resulting in unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remaining without representation since 2009; (b) Section 8 of the State party’s Refugee Law limiting asylum seekers’ right to remain until the administrative examination stage of their claim, resulting in asylumseeking children awaiting adjudication of their asylum claims by the Supreme Court being automatically considered illegal migrants, depriving them of access to reception conditions, including welfare assistance and medical care; and increasing their vulnerability to detention and deportation; (c) Denial of sponsored specialized medical care abroad to refugee and asylumseeking children, even in cases where permanent disability is a foreseen risk, and the frequent denial of special needs benefits; (d) The State party’s policy of issuing children of internally displaced persons a certificate of refugee status instead of a refugee identity card, resulting in limitations on the housing schemes that they are eligible for. 47. The Committee urges the State party to take urgent and necessary measures, including to adequately address the situation of asylum-seeking children and, in doing so, take every necessary measure to: (a) Expeditiously give full effect to the provisions of its Refugee Law, in accordance with the European Union asylum acquis and international protection standards, to guarantee separated and unaccompanied children legal representation in the asylum process; 10