Ten Birth registration: a tool for prevention, protection and prosecution
-
Claire Cody
Abstract
This chapter, drawing on the experience of Plan International, describes the utilisation of birth registration as a tool to prevent child trafficking. In many countries, failure to register births often happens on a large scale because of a failure of government resources, inadequate administrative procedures, family poverty, a lack of awareness, limited political will, and corruption. Parents are also often discouraged by the prospect of taxation or even by the fear that registered children become, in due course, ‘visible’ for conscription into armies or slave armies. Yet this registration is the key to claiming a host of rights: in a sense it defines the child as existing at all, hence its enshrinement in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 7 and 8). It opens the way to healthcare, education, nationality, and to the formal labour market. In other words, birth registration can be an effective means of protecting children, preventing sexual exploitation, and prosecuting cases of child slavery.
Abstract
This chapter, drawing on the experience of Plan International, describes the utilisation of birth registration as a tool to prevent child trafficking. In many countries, failure to register births often happens on a large scale because of a failure of government resources, inadequate administrative procedures, family poverty, a lack of awareness, limited political will, and corruption. Parents are also often discouraged by the prospect of taxation or even by the fear that registered children become, in due course, ‘visible’ for conscription into armies or slave armies. Yet this registration is the key to claiming a host of rights: in a sense it defines the child as existing at all, hence its enshrinement in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 7 and 8). It opens the way to healthcare, education, nationality, and to the formal labour market. In other words, birth registration can be an effective means of protecting children, preventing sexual exploitation, and prosecuting cases of child slavery.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Acknowledgements and dedication vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- List of abbreviations xiii
- List of boxes, figures, tables and photos xv
- Introduction: Child slavery worldwide 1
-
Strategic overviews
- Child slavery today 21
- Constructing the international legal framework 43
- Just out of reach: the challenges of ending the worst forms of child labour 61
- Child domestic labour: a global concern 81
- Child trafficking: a modern form of slavery 99
- Clarity and consistency in understanding child exploitation: a UK perspective 117
- A human rights approach to preventing child sex trafficking 133
- Child rights, culture and exploitation: UK experiences of child trafficking 145
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Themes, issues and case studies
- Preventing child trafficking in India: the role of education 163
- Birth registration: a tool for prevention, protection and prosecution 175
- ‘Bienvenue chez les grands!’: young migrant cigarette vendors in Marseille 189
- Child domestic labour: fostering in transition? 203
- Extreme forms of child labour in Turkey 215
- Haliya and kamaiya bonded child labourers in Nepal 227
- Sex trafficking in Nepal 243
- The role of the arts in resisting recruitment as child soldiers and ‘wives’: experience from Uganda and Nepal 257
- International adoption and child trafficking in Ecuador 271
- Child slavery in South and South East Asia 285
- Routes to child slavery in Central America 297
- Resources 307
- The end of child slavery? 317
- Index 327
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Acknowledgements and dedication vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- List of abbreviations xiii
- List of boxes, figures, tables and photos xv
- Introduction: Child slavery worldwide 1
-
Strategic overviews
- Child slavery today 21
- Constructing the international legal framework 43
- Just out of reach: the challenges of ending the worst forms of child labour 61
- Child domestic labour: a global concern 81
- Child trafficking: a modern form of slavery 99
- Clarity and consistency in understanding child exploitation: a UK perspective 117
- A human rights approach to preventing child sex trafficking 133
- Child rights, culture and exploitation: UK experiences of child trafficking 145
-
Themes, issues and case studies
- Preventing child trafficking in India: the role of education 163
- Birth registration: a tool for prevention, protection and prosecution 175
- ‘Bienvenue chez les grands!’: young migrant cigarette vendors in Marseille 189
- Child domestic labour: fostering in transition? 203
- Extreme forms of child labour in Turkey 215
- Haliya and kamaiya bonded child labourers in Nepal 227
- Sex trafficking in Nepal 243
- The role of the arts in resisting recruitment as child soldiers and ‘wives’: experience from Uganda and Nepal 257
- International adoption and child trafficking in Ecuador 271
- Child slavery in South and South East Asia 285
- Routes to child slavery in Central America 297
- Resources 307
- The end of child slavery? 317
- Index 327
