When staff from the municipal government came bearing news of a free birth registration activity scheduled nearby, 33-year-old mother of four Hamsiya did not hesitate. “They said that we had to register in person, that we could not send someone else. I am here because I must register my children, I have four and they are all unregistered.”
Hamsiya came with her one-year-old in tow, taking a boat early in the morning which brought them from their home in Barangay Suligan all the way to the nearby island of Barangay Bukut Umus, the location of the municipal hall of Tabuan Lasa, where UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, together with partners Ministry of Social Services and Development (MSSD) of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and UNICEF held a three-day on-site birth registration activity.
The right to a nationality is a fundamental right, but one which is challenging to attain for many who are unable to access civil documentation. This is especially true for those residing in BARMM which, according to the 2020 Census of Population and Housing released by the Philippine Statistics Authority, posted the lowest proportion of persons with registered births at 77% of the household population, corresponding to reportedly 1.10 million persons whose births were unregistered.
Like Hamsiya’s children, many others from distant municipalities in BARMM have not been registered at the time of their birth, let alone applied for late birth registration. Hamsiya said that aside from facing challenges in having access to live birth registration, they could still not afford to pay for late birth registration, since she and her husband are both unemployed as they did not receive an education.
As such, Hamsiya’s children are only able to access their birth certificates because it was offered for free and brought to their island municipality. This is the sad reality for many of the people of Tabuan Lasa, who like Hamsiya and her family have long suffered from the impact of armed conflict and clan feud or rido in the area, according to Mayor Moner Manisan.
“Back then, those living in one island could not travel to the other islands because for more than a decade, much effort had to be placed to bring our people away from fighting and violence.”
In comparison to the nearby cities like Zamboanga and Isabela where parents are able to file their newborn’s live birth and the hospitals are able to aid with documentation, the experience is very different for a distant island municipality like Tabuan Lasa where access to equipment and even electricity posed challenges, said Manisan.
“The good news is that with these developments, newborns here will have access to birth certificates which they will need in the future when they enroll in school.”
In a series of roundtable discussions between 2010-2011, the Philippine Government has identified populations at risk of statelessness, of which unregistered children within the context of forcible displacement due to armed conflict and the Sama Bajau are included. The former due to non-accessible civil registries in conflict and displacement settings and the latter due to their itinerant lifestyle, frequent border-crossing and generations of non-registration of birth.
As part of the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness and in line with the UNHCR-UNICEF Joint Strategy for Addressing Childhood Statelessness, UNHCR together with UNICEF and MSSD facilitated the handover to local government of education materials as well as equipment that would aid in the digitization of the birth registration process and improve the capacity of local civil registrars (LCRs) even in far-flung communities.
Hamsiya’s children are part of the 1,377 Sama Bajaus and unregistered children in the context of forced displacement due to armed conflict and their families who received their birth certificates during a series of birth registration activities held in Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in 2023. The birth registration initiative has helped more than 5,000 individuals receive birth certificates since 2019 and also contributes to the Philippines’ implementation of its National Action Plan to End Statelessness.
Hamsiya said, “I am happy because they will now have birth certificates. It was very difficult to register their birth because we are unemployed and could not afford to process their delayed birth registration. But I had to find a way, because the school requires it and might no longer accept my children if they do not have birth certificates. My eldest will be grade 3 and my other child will be grade 1 this year.”
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ABOUT UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution. We lead international action to protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. We deliver life-saving assistance, help safeguard fundamental human rights, and develop solutions that ensure people have a safe place called home where they can build a better future. We also work to ensure that stateless people are granted a nationality. We work in over 130 countries, using our expertise to protect and care for millions.
In the Philippines, UNHCR has maintained a presence for over 40 years, working on providing durable solutions to refugees, ending and reducing statelessness, and empowering displaced families.
Specifically, UNHCR works with the Government of the Philippines to address the situation of stateless people and populations at risk of statelessness by providing technical assistance and supporting the implementation of the State’s National Action Plan to End Statelessness.
Through a series of inter-agency roundtable discussions conducted between 2010-2011, the State has identified populations considered to be at risk of statelessness namely: unregistered children in the context of displacement due to armed conflict, foundlings, children of Filipino descent in migratory settings, persons of Indonesian descent (PID), and the Sama Bajaus. In 2021, the Persons of Japanese Descent (PJD) was added to the list.
For more information, please contact:
Karen Cepeda
External Relations Associate
[email protected]
(02) 88172398
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