World Vision International- Rwanda is a child focused international NGO committed to protecting children from abuse, neglect, exploitation and other forms of violence. It is in this regard that World Vision Rwanda has prioritized birth registration because it is a key enabler for many other ways to improve and sustain child well-being. 

Birth registration, "the continuous, permanent and universal recording within the civil registry, of the occurrence and characteristics of births in accordance with the legal requirements of a country,” is a fundamental right of all children and a basic function of all modern governments. It comprises two elements: entering details of a child’s birth (in addition to other relevant information) into official government records, and issuing a ‘birth certificate’ to the child’s parents.

The right to birth registration is contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which provides that "the child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to a nationality.” As well as being a ‘right’ in itself, birth registration has also been linked with a wide range of other rights and benefits, such as securing a child’s access to essential services and protecting children from abuse and exploitation. As part of a complete and accurate civil registration system, birth registration has also been linked to more effective child rights planning and governance, and, more broadly, to promoting social and economic growth.

Birth registration is not only a fundamental right in itself but a passport key to ensuring the fulfilment of other rights. 

Registration means proof – not only of identity, but of existence. A birth certificate is confirmation of a child’s name, parentage, nationality, and age. In many countries it is seen as the key identity document, outweighing any other. A birth certificate is often needed to enroll in school, confirm child’s identity, age and nationality, proof of parenthood, apply for a passport, driving license or national identity card, as the child becomes an adult.

Proof of age is critical in successfully prosecuting perpetrators of crimes against children such as child trafficking, sexual offences, early recruitment into the armed forces, child marriage and child labor. 

This makes this onetime act a very crucial landmark of one’s life, yet as it stands a significant number of parents have not made the effort to cloth their children with their entitlements of rights through the act of registering their births.

The recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS 2014-2015) shows that 91% of children in Rwanda are born at health facilities[4] which makes approximately 300,000 children (National Census, Medium, 2015) as reported by the Health Management Information System (HMIS). Of these children, only 56% are registered into Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) System (152,163) and only 50% of them are registered into the sector Civil Registry and are eligible to Birth Certificates. In other words only a quarter (¼) of children born at health facilities is registered in Rwanda. This situation hinders the realization of children’s rights and needs addressing.

One of the explanations for this low registration rate, according to the National Institute of Statistics’  (2014), is mainly due to the non-harmonization of HMIS with CRVS and a cumbersome, broadly unknown legal process with which parents seldom engage.

The government has shown great commitment to social protection through providing necessary frameworks and policies for an effective civil registration and vital statistics system. Sound national policies and the commitment of government agencies are, however, often not enough. Whether parents register the birth of their child(ren) depends on their awareness of the process and its importance, their ability to access civil registrar services, and their willingness to interface with State authorities. 

Low birth registration linked to current birth registration system                                            

Evidence from child protection implementation, studies and analysis indicate that the major reason for low birth registration is the fact that there is no demand for, or an impending value of having a birth certificate as opposed to not having it in terms of access to social economic services for children to trigger the supply end or the need to acquire a birth certificate.

As it stands, birth registration is solely necessary for national planning purposes. Parents do not envisage any immediate gain or importance of registering their children as a matter of urgency (no imperative), since with or without a birth certificate (‘Acte de naissance’) their children will still enjoy all rights attached in as long as there was a birth notification save for having access to travel documents (VISAs to other countries). Once children are notified at sector level, they are eligible to ‘attestation de naissance’, which perfectly serves in lieu of a birth certificate.

Other reasons and challenges identified for low birth registrations are linked to the current birth registration system. These include the overlapping birth registration systems (paper based, web based, online applications), high transactional costs for birth registration (time, distance and fines or charges for late registration), inadequate legal duration of birth registration (30 days) not enough due to maternity related reasons, and the effectiveness and efficiency factors of the existing birth registration systems (cumbersome process to acquire birth certificate). 

Some general recommendations:

Harmonization and integration of birth registration systems, establish CRVS management committees at different levels (national and districts), elaborate all institutional reforms addressing major birth registration bottlenecks (orders, decrees, guidelines, etc.), leverage technology (mobile vital registration has potential of high success rate), mobilization and awareness programs for communities at service points through existing community structures(health facilities, local authorities offices), revise and reformat the documents and books for uniformity and compliance to universal standards (information, validity, size etc.), creation of  additional registration centres in large sectors, the first copy of birth certificate should be free or at affordable price and given immediately after registration, particularly birth certificates, the government should regulate the fees for civil registration documents.

There is an urgent need to increase the number of children whose births are registered in communities to ensure that the government can accurately plan for their needs.