Providing access to birth Registration in El Salvador

Taken by Mery Cruz: Childmedia - Chalate Gente Activa group

Plan helped launch the El Salvador National Campaign for Universal Birth Registration in May 2005. Since then, we have trained the country’s 252 Municipal Registrars and legal staff of the Family Courts and Attorney General’s Office for the task of registering new births and delayed registrations.

In 2006 Plan, with government and non-government organizations helped create COSEDINS - the Follow-Up Committee for the Right of Salvadoran Children to an Identity: which addresses child registration issues and seeks to make the registration process more accessible and less bureaucratic.

Plan and the Ministry of Education have also included information on legal guidelines for birth registration, recognition of children by their fathers, name changes and birth certificate corrections, into the National School for Parents program, which is mandatory in all the country’s public schools.

Plan and partners, have provided free legal consultations in “legal clinics” at local fairs and other community events for families living in remote areas. At the same time, the National Registry (RNPN) for juridical consultations launched a telephone line to answer birth certificate and other identity issues.

Santos Martínez (41), a mother from Chalatenango, say: “When my youngest girl was born her father had already left us and I got so sick that I just didn’t go to the City Hall to register her. When months went by without doing it, I knew I would have to pay a fine, and I don’t have the money. Now, she is already 6 years old and I want her to go to school, but the teacher is asking me for the birth certificate. It never occurred to me that a piece of paper was so important.”

See our global campaign for birth registration

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