WUNRN
BIRTH REGISTRATION - LEGAL IDENTITY
- VITAL IMPORTANCE FOR GIRLS
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"It is the girl child who suffers the
most. If she is not registered, and cannot prove that she is a child, she can
be married off or be forced into child labour, or even forced into
prostitution. As such their education and health depends on birth
registration." __________________________________________________________________ |
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PLAN INTERNATIONAL |
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What is Birth Registration?
A prerequisite for a legal
identity...
Birth registration
is the process by which a child's birth is recorded in the civil register by
the applicable government authority.
It provides the
first legal recognition of the child and is generally required for the child to
obtain a birth certificate and consequently any other legal documents and
rights.
Whilst, in some
cases, this is issued to the child at the same time as registration, in others,
a separate application must be made. It is important that the registered child
receive a birth certificate, since it is this that provides permanent, official
and visible evidence of a state's legal recognition of his or her existence as
a member of society.
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http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm
Ratification Status: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/ratification/11.htm
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Article
7
1. 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.
2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.
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Children
More Vulnerable to Exploitation Without Birth Registry
More than 200 million children worldwide are currently in child labour. (REUTERS: Parth Sanyal )
Around 50 million children are born without birth certificates every year, which makes abolishing crimes like child sex trafficking more difficult, says a leading aid organisation.
Plan International is using the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to highlight the issue, which Australian chief executive Ian Wishart says people in developed countries take for granted.
"The registration piece of paper ... is a child's absolute first right and in many developing countries it never happens," he said.
"More than 50 million people go unregistered and what this has in terms of consequences for children is quite dramatic........
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----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2008 11:00 AM
Subject: Birth Registration - Vital Importance - The Girl Child
WUNRN
IMPORTANCE OF BIRTH REGISTRATION FOR
THE GIRL CHILD
____________________________________________________________________
PLAN - FACTS & FIGURES
Universal Birth
Registration
Since the launch of our Universal Birth Registration campaign in February 2005, a great deal has been achieved:
- more than five million children have been registered
- over 90 per cent of Plan countries are involved in
the campaign
- ten Plan offices have achieved changes to policy
or legislation
- 21 offices are working towards policy change
- registration costs have been waived or reduced in 11
countries
View detailed campaign achievements opposite.
The current situation worldwide:
- Over 48 million births each year – 36 per cent of
births worldwide – are not registered. According to UNICEF, the regional
breakdown of unregistered births is as follows:
|
South
Asia |
63% |
|
Sub-Saharan
Africa |
55% |
|
CEE/CIS
& Baltic States |
23% |
|
East
Asia/Pacific |
19% |
|
Middle
East/North Africa |
16% |
|
Latin
America/Caribbean |
15% |
|
Industrialised
countries |
2% |
- It is difficult for unregistered children to prove
their legal identity.
- Unknown numbers of children orphaned by AIDS are being
denied their right to inherit parental property because they do not have a
birth certificate providing legal proof of their identity and family ties.
- In some countries around the world, a child without
proof of citizenship will be denied access to vaccination programmes.
- In Bangladesh, marriage of a child under 18 is
prohibited by law. However, a mere declaration regarding the age of the
bride is enough for marriage registration. The incidence of early marriage
could be reduced if all marriage registrars asked for birth certificates
and proof of age.
- The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates
that around 246 million children are currently involved in child labour
worldwide. Of these, 179 million – or one in every eight children
worldwide - are exposed to the worst forms of child labour, which endanger
their physical, mental or moral well-being. Birth registration can play an
important role in combating child labour. Establishing a legal minimum age
for work is clearly an important first step but, without an effective
birth registration system to back it up, it is difficult for government
agencies acting to eliminate such practices by confirming the age of the
children concerned.
- In many countries, sexual relations with a girl under
16, with or without her consent, are regarded as rape. Yet, without a
birth certificate to confirm a girl's age and to prove she is underage, it
is hard to obtain a conviction.
- Research carried out for Plan Nepal uncovered a
situation where police were unwilling to trace a girl known to have been
trafficked across the border to a brothel in India because she had no
birth certificate or means of identification. This meant that there was no
proof of her age, nationality or even her existence. This is great cause
for concern given that there are currently an estimated 200,000 women and
girls missing from Nepal, believed to have been trafficked to India.
- A Plan commissioned survey of children in rural schools
in Ghana found that many children – even literate ones – freely admitted
that they did not know their age. 80 per cent of those who did give
their age were found to be incorrect when their answer was compared to the
date of birth given in the school register (which also tended to be hugely
incomplete). In the case of one boy who gave his age as 10 years old it
emerged, after lengthy investigation, that he was actually 17 years old.
- In some parts of Burkina Faso there exists the belief
that registering a child can be a bad omen and among other consequences,
spell death for the child. Clearly such beliefs are incompatible with the
concept of registering births and cause birth registration systems to
fail.
- In Cameroon, the Baka Pygmies are significantly under-represented
in the 80 per cent national birth registration rate, with a recent census
showing that up to 98 percent of children in Baka communities do not have
a birth certificate. Plan Cameroon has been working with indigenous
populations for over six years, helping them gain official recognition
from the government. The local authorities have now officially accepted
four Baka communities as recognised villages. Plan has also helped more
than 200 Baka adults to get an identity card which, in turn, means that
they can now get a birth certificate for their unregistered children.
- At the Third Asia Regional Conference on Birth
Registration, an example was given of a child of nearly 18 years of age
sentenced to the death penalty. His lawyers were attempting to get relief
for him under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, he faced
difficulty in getting true justice because he could not prove his exact
date of birth due to the absence of a birth certificate.
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