Birth Registration:Is it a Human Right? The Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

Abstract

The premises of this research are rooted in the debate about children rights in relation to birth registration, with focus on the case of DRC. The Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 and a number of other international treaties enshrine the right for every child to have a name and a nationality. Nevertheless, the number of non-recorded births of children under the age of five worldwide nearly reaches 230 million . The impossibility to obtain a birth certificate implies a failure in the formal recognition of the newborns by the State. Consequently, millions of people are denied the exercise of their basic human rights due to the fact that they are not recognised as citizens of any country. The paper aims at investigating how the right to have a birth certificate is harmonised under International Law as well as under the Congolese national legal and normative framework. After providing an overview on the relevant international and national legislation, the paper describes the relations between birth registration and the risk of statelessness in DRC. In addition, through the analysis of statistical data from both ministerial and UN databases the paper highlights the variation of the birth registration rate in relation to: changes of the laws in force; and UN interventions. Eventually the paper identifies the major barriers to birth registration, from both a global and local point of view. Accordingly, it proposes a number of suggestions to overcome these barriers in DRC.