Challenges No. 13. The right to an identity: birth registration in Latin America and the Caribbean

The right to an identity: birth registration in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A disturbing token of child and adolescent vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean is that so many are deprived of any legal identity by failure to report their birth. This bars them from exercising basic citizen rights and can hinder their access to productive employment, social benefits and the justice system and deny them recognition as full citizens and the right to well-being, capacity development and political participation.

The disadvantages that exclusion and discrimination entail for those lacking civil and legal registration are brought into sharp focus in the lead article of this issue of Challenges, whose main theme is “The right to an identity: birth registration in Latin America and the Caribbean.” The article explains the consequences of this situation and what remains to be done between now and 2015 to achieve universal registration–a distant but critical goal.

This issue also contains information on the year’s meetings and conferences on birth registration in the region. The Executive Secretary of the MERCOSUR Human Rights Public Policy Institute reports on what is being done in this subregion to secure Inter-American Court of Human Rights protection for migrant children, stressing the right to an identity. Last, there is a summary of the achievements of the Universal Civil Identity Program in the Americas (PUICA) and some basic data on the serious lags in child birth registration in the region.