Government to reform birth registration system

P.C. Naommy, Jakarta

The government is set to employ a universal, mandatory, continuous and free birth registration system to protect the fundamental rights of all children.

Birth registration plays a main role in protecting children from various forms of human rights violations, including abuse, child labor exploitation, trafficking and illegal adoption.

"We've been preparing a new bill on the National Civil Registration Law to promote nationwide coverage of birth registration," said Rohadi Haryanto, director general for population administration for the Ministry of Home Affairs, on Tuesday.

Rohadi was speaking after witnessing the signing of a letter of intent between the government of Japan and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for the finalization of a US$800,000 grant from Japan to assist UNICEF's ongoing projects on birth registration in Indonesia.

The funds will support the development and implementation of the new law, increase people's awareness of the importance of birth registration and cover the cost of pilot projects in 10 districts in East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Papua, South Sulawesi and Java.

The draft law, which is currently being discussed by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, will help people save money and time in registering births.

According to Rohadi, under the new law, people would not be asked for money, because registration is free. People will also no longer have to travel to their regental capital to obtain birth certificates for their children.

"With the implementation of an information system, they'll just need to go to their respective subdistricts for data entry and to obtain birth certificates," said Rohadi.

The law will also require people to have a birth certificate to apply for an identification card.

Data from the Ministry of Women's Empowerment show that 63.8 percent of Indonesian workers had made fake ID cards in order to secure a job.

The fact that currently 26 percent of the 90.2 million Indonesian children have no birth certificate will make it difficult for authorities to prevent the falsification of IDs in the future.

UNICEF Representative to Indonesia Steven Allen said the figure has put the country among 19 countries with the lowest coverage of birth registration. "This puts Indonesia at the world's bottom 10 percent," he said.

UNICEF cited the lack of understanding, awareness, legal support and high registration cost as factors that have hindered people from registering their babies' births.

UNICEF data show that more than 50 percent of children aged under five in Indonesia were not registered in 2003. Some 27.7 percent of the parents failed to register their babies due to the high cost.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, East Nusa Tenggara has the highest number of unregistered births at a percentage of 95.4, while Yogyakarta accounts for the lowest number of unregistered births at 2.3 percent.

Under regional autonomy, many regencies see birth registration as a source of income.