Birth registration programmes reach out to indigenous groups
By Kathryn Seymour The yard outside the community development centre is littered with brightly coloured sandals – each around four inches in length. From inside the cool and shady doorway drifts a choir of young voices. The children, all between the ages of 3 and 6, are singing a song about how they should look after their teeth, their hair, their fingers and their clothes. Azit Parva Tripura who runs the community development centre has also been learning anew how to look after the young children of Ganjapara. As part of UNICEF’s birth registration programme, she received training on the importance of birth registration in safeguarding children and their rights. All of the pre-school children at the centre are registered with birth certificates thanks to her efforts. “I collected the forms from the council for all the children,” says Azit. “To fill them in and find out about their birth dates, I used their immunization cards.” Birth registration is a particularly important issue in Ganjapara and the other villages of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a region in the south-east of Bangladesh where over 50 per cent of the population come from 13 ethnic minority groups. Universal birth registration, which the Government and UNICEF had hoped to achieve by the end of 2008 but now believe will only be complete by 2010, will help to ensure that these minority groups achieve the same rights as all other citizens of Bangladesh. Almost 100 per cent registration Azit also encourages the mothers to register their entire families. Her message is getting through. Almost every man, women and child in the village have registered over the last twelve months. “It was a little difficult for us to fill in all our forms,” says Makra, a mother of four. “So we took the help of one boy in our village who is well educated. We registered ourselves and our three oldest children.” “My husband collected the forms from the union council,” says Manuching. “We are five family members and all of us are registered, except my last child, Kyashe. He was born after we registered. We will register him soon, as soon as he gets his first immunization.” Birth certificates and traditional records The village headman, Kaylan Kishor Roaza, and several other local leaders also received training on how to encourage universal birth registration within their community. Headmen are the traditional leaders of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. “Since 2007, I have known about birth registration,” explains Kaylan Kishor Roaza. “We have been registering everyone for the last ten to twelve months. There has always been a tradition that headmen keep all the information on births, deaths, marriages and other data on his people. But with the growth of the population, this became very hard and I could not cope anymore. Now birth registration is replacing these records and the system is much stronger.” Using the certificates Local officials believe that people are adapting extremely well to the new birth registration system. Of the 9400 residents recorded in the union (sub-district) during the last census, 9300 have been registered and 6882 have received their certificates. “I wouldn’t feel like a proper citizen without my birth certificate,” says Ratnudes, a young mother. “Initially, we thought that they were a burden to get,” says another mother. “Now, we realise that they are essential to have. Previously, I needed the headman or the union chairman to accompany me whenever I needed to do something official, so that he could formally identify me or my children. Now I don’t need that. I am able to prove Donor: Government of the Netherlands, European Commission.
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