Getting our birth-right

Peter Novecosky, OSB

The Anglican Church has alerted us to the value of having a birth certificate. It has also alerted us to the astonishing fact that one-third of all children born today are not properly registered at birth.

The International Anglican Family Network (IAFN) has launched a global campaign to highlight and correct this — a formality we take for granted here in Canada.

Canadians may not feel stressed about this formality because it is done automatically for us. We easily access this information when we change our status — such as at marriage — or when we apply for old age pension.

But IAFN notes that birth registration is more than a mere formality. It opens the door to education, health care and just treatment before the law. Without it, people may not be able to obtain a passport, own a house or land, or marry. Lack of a birth certificate disadvantages a person both in childhood and as an adult. They can be easily exploited because they are officially invisible. One of the worst outcomes is that a child can become easy prey for traffickers.

IAFN gave the example of Santiago, a 12-year-old boy from the Philippines who was not registered at birth. He was taken from his family by a man who promised him a vital eye operation in Manila. Instead, Santiago was taken to the city and locked in a brothel where he was abused for 15 years. His parents went to the police and tried to find him but with no success. Members of the Christian organization Jigsaw Kids Ministries eventually found Santiago begging on the streets. He was half blind and in terrible condition.

In support of the campaign, which began in Advent 2011, Archbishop-emeritus Desmond Tutu said of birth registration: “It is a small paper but it actually establishes who you are and gives access to the rights and privileges, and the obligations of citizenship.”

There are any number of reasons why children are not registered in developing countries. In Papua New Guinea only one per cent of the 260,000 children born each year are registered. Registration is low because families have to travel long distances to register a birth.

Family disruption creates further problems for a growing number of people today. Registration is difficult for orphans, internally displaced and refugee children who are separated from their parents or whose parents have died. Children of unmarried parents or parents of different nationalities also face barriers.

Tutu outlined the scope of the issue: every year in the developing world the births of about 51 million children go unregistered.

Church communities often play a vital part in addressing this issue. Baptismal certificates are accepted as an official identification or church personnel encourage and enable parents to register their children civilly.

While the IAFN is encouraging the Anglican Communion to help make birth registration a universal reality, it’s a cause that will appeal to all Christians, and all humanitarians.

The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for the registration of babies “immediately after birth,” followed by their right “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.”

For too many children today, that is still not a reality.