Birth Registration : Fact Finding Report; Delhi

Post Date: Thursday, September 8, 2016

Article 7, UNCRC: “The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents”

India’s National Population Policy (2000) set a goal of 100% registration by 2010. The country has failed to reach this goal by wide margins. Today the Government of India registers 58% of annual births, violating at least 10 million children’s fundamental rights to registering and to a legal existence.

The fact finding team visited slum clusters in Delhi to investigate the fulfilment of the rightsof a child of brith registeration to ensure the Legal Relationship between individual and the State. This report maps out the situation of birth registration in India as a whole and explains the importance of birth registration. The state has a vast array of legal obligations both in the form of international obligations and national law that applies such as the RBD Act 1969. The RBD Act makes it compulsory to register both births and deaths; however there is still approximately 14.6% of all births that goes unregistered. Hence, this report calls for state action to improve the birth registration rates.