Why having a birth certificate is a human right

More than a billion people worldwide, mostly children, have no birth certificates. In many countries, this means they can't get access to vital services like health care and education, says legal identity expert Kristen Wenz. She discusses why this problem is one of the greatest human rights violations of our time -- and shares five strategies to ensure everyone can get registered and protected.

So, when I was 14,

my family was in the process of adopting
my little brothers from Ethiopia.

And one day my mom asked,

"What day should we put
for their birthday?"

"Uh, the day they were born, obviously?"

Ridiculous question.

And then my mom said,

"Well, Kristen,

neither of your little brothers
have a birth certificate,

so how do you suggest
we find out when that was?"

Mind blown.

Now, 20 years later,
I'm still working on it,

except instead of trying
to solve the mystery

of my brothers' missing
birth certificates,

I try to solve this problem globally.

So what do birth certificates have to do
with international development?

To answer that, we have to look back
at the original development agenda,

the human rights agenda.

So in 1948, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights,

for the first time,

set a shared vision of basic
human rights and dignities

that apply to all people in all nations:

Article 6, the right to be recognized
as a person before the law.

Or, a legal identity.

For children, this is a birth certificate.

And despite this being
a universal human right,

one billion people today
have no record they exist,

making it one of the greatest
human rights violations of our time,

yet nobody seems to know about it.

In the face of world poverty and hunger,

making sure everyone in the world
has a legal identity

doesn't really seem important,

but in reality it is.

See, early in my career,

I was working with a social worker
in a slum community in Mumbai,

and we were following up
on a case with this little girl

who had contracted polio as a baby
and was paralyzed from the waist down.

When we arrived at the home,

we found her on the floor.

Her legs were badly scarred and infected,

she was malnourished,

she had never gone to school

and she had spent most of her life
confined to this small, dark room.

When we left, I asked the social worker
what the case plan was,

and she said, "Well first, we have
to get her a birth certificate."

I was a little taken aback.

I said, "Well, don't you think we need
to get her some social assistance

and a safe place to live
and into a school?"

She goes, "Exactly, which is why
we need to get her a birth certificate."

See, without a legal identity,

you are not recognized
as a person by the government.

And a person who doesn't officially exist
can't access government services,

and the government
can only provide services

for the number of people they know about.

Hence, people are overlooked, for example,
by routine immunization services.

People without a legal identity
are both uncounted and unprotected.

They're among the poorest
members of society

from the most marginalized communities.

They're victims of trafficking.

Human traffickers know that
it's nearly impossible to find someone

if there was never a record
they existed in the first place.

They're victims of exploitation,
such as child marriage and child labor.

Without a birth certificate,
how do you prove a child is still a child?

They're among the stateless;

birth certificates provide proof
of who your parents are

and where you were born,

the two main factors
for acquiring nationality.

Of the one billion people in the world
without a legal identity,

the vast majority are children
who were never registered at birth.

In the least developed nations,

the births of over 60 percent of children
have never been recorded.

A study across 17 countries
in sub-Saharan Africa

found that 80 percent of children
did not have a birth certificate.

Out of the countries
that have not yet achieved

universal birth registration coverage,

in 26 countries, a birth certificate
is required to access health care,

including vaccines.

In 37 countries, it's required
to access social assistance

intended to bring people out of poverty.

And in 59 countries,
a birth certificate is required

for a child to be enrolled
or complete school.

A birth certificate is also often required
for other forms of legal identity,

like a national ID or a passport.

And some form of legal identity
in almost every country is required

to vote, get a SIM card
or open a bank account.

In fact, of the 1.7 billion people
in the world who are unbanked,

20 percent is due to not having
a legal identity document.

Now, you don't have to be an expert
to see that this, times a billion,

is a big problem.

So it's not surprising
that evidence shows

that improved birth registration
coverage goes hand in hand

with improved development outcomes,

from poverty alleviation

to better health, nutrition, education,

economic improvement

and safe and orderly migration.

In 2015, world leaders came together

and promised that they would
uphold human rights of all people

and leave no one behind

in efforts to end poverty,

hunger

and reduce inequalities.

But how are they going
to uphold human rights

and how do they know
if anyone is being left behind

if they do not know who they are
or where they are

in the first place?

So what can countries do about this?

Now, there's no one-size-fits-all model,

because every country context is unique.

There are five proven interventions
that can be applied to any system.

Number one, reduce the distance.

Two, remove the cost.

Three, simplify the process.

Four, remove discrimination.

Five, increase demand.

Gender discrimination
remains a hidden problem,

because statistically,
there's no difference

between registration rates
of boys and girls.

But the discrimination
isn't against the child --

it's against the mother.

Angola was one of 35 countries
that required a father's name

or to be present in order
for the child's birth to be registered.

So in situations where the father
is unknown, unwilling

or unable to claim paternity,

the mothers are legally prevented
from registering the births

of their own children.

So to address this,
Angola put a policy in place

allowing mothers to register
their children as a single parent.

In Tanzania, in 2012,

only 13 percent of children
had a birth certificate.

So the government
came up with a new system.

They put registration centers
in existing infrastructure,

such as community wards

and in health facilities.

So they brought the services closer
to the people who needed them.

They removed the fee.

They simplified the process
and automated it,

so the birth certificate
could be issued on the spot.

To increase demand, they rolled out
a public awareness campaign,

letting people know
that there's a new process

and why it was important to register
the births of their children.

In just a few years in the districts
where the new system was put in place,

83 percent of children
now have birth certificates,

and they're in the process
of rolling this out nationwide.

So what can you do?

See, I believe we are all united
by our humanity.

We live on the same earth.
We breathe the same air.

And while none of us chose to be born
or the situation we were born into,

we do get to choose how we live.

Change occurs when a moment of awareness

or a moment of compassion

inspires a person to act.

And through our collective action,

we become the most powerful
agents of change.

And when the cost of inaction is
innocent children are left unprotected,

unvaccinated, unable to go to school,

growing up to be adults who are unable
to find decent work or vote,

trapped in a cycle of poverty,
exclusion and invisibility,

it comes down to us

to take this issue out of the darkness

and into the light.

Because it's not every day you get
the opportunity to change the world,

but today,

you do.

Thanks.

(Applause)