Flexibility for Leticia

Ariel Duranboger

A six-year old Leticia lives with her grandparents in a municipality of Potosí in the southwest of Bolivia near the borders to Argentina and Chile. Potosí is the highest department in Bolivia with an altitude of 4,000 meters above sea level.
 
The municipality forms a part of the province of José María Linares, where one in two people survives at a level of extreme poverty. Registries reveal a 52 percent rate. 
 

Ariel Duranboger

Tomás Hilabani, a school teacher, says that Leticia has been attending school without her birth certificate and understands her situation, but it is certain that she will need this document as soon as possible.  "Her father has been away in another community and up to now has not been able to legally recognize her. The mother is also absent and we don't know her whereabouts," he explained.  
  

Patricia, her grandmother, says in Quechua language that Leticia does not want to be recognized by her maternal grandfather and hopes that her father will one day decide to recognize her. The law does not allow recognitions from the grandparents.
 
Leticia's situation is even more complex. The Civil Registry official for the community actually lives in another one, and only gets there on Saturdays. He has not been able to resolve the problem and is unaware of the procedures required to grant her the Birth Certificate. 

Ariel Duranboger

To deal with Leticia’s case and those of other children in similar circumstances, officials of the Departmental Electoral Court, the Civil Registry and Plan have concentrated their efforts on the Registration and Birth Certificate campaign in the region. 
 
Teresa Romay, spokesperson for the Departmental Electoral Court of Potosí, says that the campaign is strengthened by the Free Registration Unit also supported by Plan, providing orientation to citizens aimed at immediately addressing this and other cases: "The Court seeks to solve this issue; it is essential to register the girl by providing flexible solutions that guarantee her right to identity.”

See some of the actions made by Plan in the Americas for the Universal birth registration.

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