Universal Birth Registration

A third of world's children are denied an identity

Today more than a third of all children are still denied one of the most fundamental rights of all: the right to an official identity.

Throughout the world an estimated 48 million new babies annually go unregistered. Without birth certificates, these children grow up with no official identity and as far as the state is concerned they are non-persons.

A non-person is denied the privileges and protection afforded by citizenship. A birth certificate is the key to claiming numerous other rights such as nationality, education and medical care. Children without access to these are significantly disadvantaged in their childhood as well as in their adult life.

“If you are not registered as a citizen in the country of your birth, as far as the state is concerned you do not exist. This can mean that you get no protection from crime, you can be excluded from state education, and when you have your own children you cannot prove that you are their parent.”

Jaap van der Straaten, of Plan

Unregistered and undocumented children are extremely vulnerable to exploitation of every kind. They become easy prey for trafficking, child labour, prostitution and criminal gangs.

Young people can be treated as adults if they are unable to prove their age. For example in the Philippines two teenage offenders were sentenced to the death penalty because they were unable to prove that they were under 18.

Why is this still happening?

The reasons why so many children go unregistered are varied. Poor parents may find the registration fee too expensive or are unaware of the importance of a birth certificate. Many do not know how to register a new baby and in rural areas the registration office may be too far to travel to.

In times of war or disaster unregistered people are even more exposed because they lack the identity papers that would assist them in accessing food aid or refugee status.

What is Plan doing about this?

Plan is campaigning at local and national levels.  See our global campaign website www.writemedown.org.

Plan's birth registration campaign encourages governments to introduce more effective and accessible systems for birth registration. A nation cannot plan adequate provision for education and health care if it is underestimating its population by millions.

Plan is working to encourage the creation of more effective government laws and structures to register births and to enhance the capacity to undertake birth registration. Plan also undertakes grassroots networking and local level initiatives, incorporation of birth registration activities across our program work, and awareness raising in order to increase the demand for birth registration.

Birth Registration facts

One third of the world's children are not officially registered as citizens.

Every year about 40 million children are born without being registered.

Six out of ten unregistered new-borns are in South and South-east Asia.

Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states: “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.”

Without a birth certificate a person can be denied their right to:

• go to school
• receive healthcare
• prove their age
• receive special protection as a minor
• be adopted
• obtain a passport
• prove their nationality
• take exams
• marry
• hold a driving license
• inherit money or property
• own a house or land
• open a bank account
• vote or stand for elected office.
  
  

Birth Registration - Case Studies

Manmaya went missing in 1994, when she was fifteen years old, along with her new husband. Three years later her friends and family in Nepal discovered that her husband was in prison and Manmaya had fallen prey to human traffickers who had taken her to work in an Indian brothel. But Nepalese police say they cannot investigate her abduction. This is because Manmaya's birth was never registered and there was no proof of her existence, her citizenship or her marriage.

Sudhama was born in Nepal but when she was six years old she was married to an Indian man who took her to live in India. By the time she was twelve her husband had divorced her. Now she lives with her parents but she has never been able to go to school or join a skills training program because her birth was never registered and she cannot prove her Nepalese citizenship. Because Sudhama cannot prove her age or nationality it is impossible for those who forced her to marry before the legally permitted age to be prosecuted.

Alfred Lim was a presidential candidate in the Philippines in 1998, but his eligibility for the candidacy was challenged because he had no birth certificate and could not prove that he was a Filipino citizen.

A child's first right

The importance of a birth certificate can sometimes be difficult to understand and the rights it implies are often taken for granted. But a certificate is more than a bureaucratic process and a piece of paper - it is a ticket to citizenship, it's a child's first right. Without a certificate children may be denied their basic rights and they become vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

In the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child it is stated that every child has the right to be registered at birth. All governments in Asia agreed to this. Yet two-thirds of the world's 50 million children who go unregistered at birth every year live in Asia. In Cambodia less then 5 per cent of the total population is currently registered, and almost all newborn children don't receive a birth certificate.This is why Plan Cambodia together with the Ministry of Interior and UN volunteers have started a country-wide mobile civil registration campaign.

Without an official identity children become invisible and are denied basic rights such as nationality, healthcare and education. Many of these children also become more vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking, child labour, early marriage and even military recruitment.

If a large group of children is never registered, they may be systematically excluded from government plans.

A birth certificate is a child's ticket to citizenship. It is a ticket to claim the rights and responsibilities that comes with a citizenship. It's a child's first right.