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OAS PROMOTES RIGHTS TO IDENTITY FOR CHILDREN IN THE AMERICAS

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, called for international cooperation to advance projects designed to ensure that every citizen, from birth, has the protection of “a face and an identity.” He spoke at the opening of a special meeting of the OAS Permanent Council on “Childhood, Identity and Citizenship in the Americas.”

Insulza said the lack of identification documents not only presents an obstacle in the daily life of millions of people in the hemisphere, but also has to do with protecting children. “The lack of an identity subjects children, from the time they are born, to conditions that limit their capacity to exercise their full citizenship,” Insulza said. Not having an adequate birth record “restricts individuals in their access to justice, education and health care, and makes them more vulnerable and subject to unemployment, exclusion, illegal adoption and sexual exploitation,” he told a panel of regional experts.

The OAS has been working to promote the institutionalization of timely, accurate civil registries throughout the Americas, the Secretary General explained. “We are developing an important project on identity which we hope to begin soon in several countries of the hemisphere,” he said. Insulza recalled the OAS experience in supporting Haiti’s voter registration process, in which some 3.5 million citizens who signed up to participate in last year’s elections also became part of a permanent civil registry. “We hope that this will not only be maintained but that it will be extended to the entire population,” Insulza said, adding that “we are at an advanced stage of being able to launch a similar project in several Caribbean countries.” He also alluded to an initiative in Paraguay, where several hundred thousand people have already been enrolled.

The Secretary General stressed that by including universal registration on its agenda a few months ago, the OAS hoped to make this issue “a substantive area for action in terms of our social participation in the Americas.” Many countries already have a solid civil registry, he said, and they will be best positioned to cooperate with other countries that do not.

Insulza also talked about the issue in the context of a recent report on women’s access to justice, prepared by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Women who are victims of violence and who lack an official identity are unable to appear before the justice system “because they are nobody,” he said. “This problem occurs in various sectors of our society,” he added, “because the lack of identification records is often linked to inequality and poverty.” The Secretary General noted that “the poorest of the poor” have no access to benefits because they do not have an official identity, adding that this problem “affects, according to our information, close to 15 percent of the population of the Americas, and it is growing.”

The Permanent Council meeting, chaired by Ambassador María del Luján Flores of Uruguay, was intended to increase awareness in the member states about the dimension of the problem and the relationship between the right to identity and governance, democracy and development, as well as potential future repercussions for individuals who lack birth records. The meeting of experts was coordinated in conjunction with the OAS Department for the Promotion of Governance.

In his remarks, Insulza referred to a memorandum of understanding signed a few months ago between the OAS, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and UNICEF to carry out a joint project on the issue of identity in the Americas. He said he hopes this cooperative effort continues, not only to keep raising awareness about the need to guarantee this right, but also to provide countries with the cooperation they need to be able to have much more complete registry systems than they have in place today and thus have an effective foundation for addressing other issues related to the protection of children.

In welcoming experts from different international organizations, Ambassador Flores referred to the legal instruments that provide special protections for children, one of the most vulnerable groups of society. She said the first of these that expressly touched on the right to identity was the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into effect in 1990. Ambassador Flores noted that the Inter-American Children’s Institute (known as IIN, in Spanish) prepared a 2005-2008 Strategic Plan in order to help promote and protect children’s rights and improve their quality of life with a focus on family and community.

Panelists included John Biehl, INN Interim Director; Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; Mark Steinbeck of the International Committee of the Red Cross; Nils Kastberg of UNICEF; Carlos Anaya Moreno of the Latin American Council on Civil Registry, Identity and Vital Statistics; and Jacqueline Mazza of the IDB.

The Permanent Council Chair welcomed the newly designated IIN Director General, María de los Dolores Aguilar Marmolejo, who will assume the post on April 15. On Wednesday, during a special meeting of the Permanent Council, the member states received the INN annual report summarizing the Uruguay-based agency’s activities in 2006. The report highlights the offer made by the government of the Dominican Republic to establish a regional sub-headquarters to serve Central America and the Caribbean. It also recommends establishing a formal collaboration between the Inter-American Children’s Institute and the Ibero-American General Secretariat.

Reference: E-075/07