7.5 million Filipinos do not have birth certificates

published by asingh on Tue, 03/26/2013 - 20:55

 

Philippines faces a serious problem as 7.5 million of the total population is without birth certificates. The unregistered Filipinos remain deprived of some civil and democratic rights including secondary education and voting rights.
According to a UK-based NGO, Child-centered Plan International, two of 10 children in 500 communities they are in touch with are not registered at birth. Most of them are denied the basic right to education since they have no birth certificates to prove their age or identity. Plan country director Carin van der Hor said that ARMM has the highest rate of unregistered individuals.
“It means that out there a lot of Filipinos do not enjoy the right to a name and a nationality, this is a basic human right. It means they cannot prove their identity. (They) have difficulty enrolling in schools, applying for jobs, securing travel documents,” van der Hor, a Dutch national helping destitute communities in the country, said.
Several families do not understand the importance of getting themselves registered as Philippines nationals as they find it time consuming and useless. Most of them are also concerned about the costs involved in processing and obtaining birth documents.
“High fees and the distance of the registration office from where they live really hinder the process,” she added.
Van der Hor further explained that Filipinos without birth certificates are at high risk of being traded for forced labor and sexual slavery.
“Minors whose age cannot be verified through official record may become a very easy pray for human trafficking and in fact we’ve seen that happen. Needless to say, birth registration is a child protection tool that helps ensure that children in conflict with the law are not treated as adults, for instance, and it reduces the risk of children being trafficked, among others,” van der Hor said.
 
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