khmer sources

Yes, I have a birth certificate, a piece of paper which according to Plan Cambodia means you can open that bank account and travel to other countries; your child can enroll in school; they can access health services; eventually vote and marry; and be entitled to local government benefits.
A birth certificate is not merely a piece of paper. It is legal proof of identity and each individual person’s on the planet legitimate right.

However, approximately 48 million newborn children go unregistered throughout the world every year. In South Asia, six out of every ten newborns go unregistered. Similarly, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 55 percent of births are unregistered.

To address this issue, Plan International launched a Universal Birth Registration campaign in New York in February 2005, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Plan’s global spokesperson on Birth Registration.

Cambodia became a part of this push for promoting birth registration. Plan’s task in this country: to assist the Ministry of Interior, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and UNICEF, and register 13 million people.To avoid persecution during the unrest of the 1970s in Cambodia, many Cambodians destroyed their birth certificates; government registration systems, including deaths and marital information, were also lost.

On 1 October 2004, the Cambodian Ministry of Interior, supported by Plan Cambodia, UNICEF and the ADB, launched a mobile national civil registration campaign in Cambodia in order to establish and strengthen a uniform civil registration system and ensure each individual was legally accounted for. A pilot project had been conducted in early 2004 in Kompong Speu, Svay Rieng and Ratanakiri.

According to Plan Cambodia’s senior advisor (Governance and Child Rights) Shabir Ahmed, by May 2006, 80 percent of the Cambodian population was registered with birth certificates.

"Mobile registration ... will end on 31 August 2006. It is expected that by then, nearly 90 percent of the population will have their birth certificates and many others will have marriage certificates and certificates for their deceased relatives," Ahmed says.

"Civil registration is a dynamic and continuous process. It can never be 100 percent because everyday somebody is born, someone gets married and someone leaves this world," he says.
The responsibility for birth, death and marriage certificates has been placed with Cambodia’s Commune Councils. Practical training was given to members of these Councils in the registration process, as was education of the population about the importance of civil registration. Plan hired 27 UN Volunteers (UNVs) for seven months to assist provincial authorities in the planning, implementation and monitoring of the project. The Volunteers arrived in June 2004 and came from all over the world.

"The role of the UNVs has been very important in the implementation of this huge project," Ahmed says. "[The UN Volunteers] held hundreds of community meetings ... Some UNVs took the initiative of printing posters and leaflets in collaboration with municipal [and] provincial authorities, and educated a number of people on the benefits of having a birth certificate."

So will the Commune Councils be able to continue their work into the future? Plan Cambodia’s regional coordinator Irina Dincu says it is estimated the Councils will be up to the task.

"This is a challenge of the project and makes its beauty," Dincu says. "The most important part of the campaign related to the Commune Councils, was that they understood the importance of having this as a regular part of their work, [and] understood the procedure[s]."
Om Puthyka, 12, and her mother Om Vantha, 51, along with nine other members of their family, were issued birth certificates in October 2005. This family traveled to their "homeland", the province of Kompong Speu, to be registered with certificates at Veal Pong commune.
Puthyka knows exactly what it means to own this valuable piece of information.

"I was happy just to see my own birth certificate," Puthyka says. "When we have it, it is easy to work and go outside; we can use it to prove our identity."

Her mother Vantha says she was also pleased to finally have a certificate of identity, for both herself and her family members.

"I am happy for my daughter ... when she gets a job later in life, she has this piece of paper to show her employers and prove she is who she says she is," Vantha says.
On 20 November 2004, thousands of children like Puthyka, gathered in matching t-shirts and caps at Phnom Penh’s Hun Sen Park for a Children’s Fair, organized by the city’s Municipality and Plan Cambodia. The theme: "Birth Registration – Participation, Opportunities, Development", was the second of its kind in Cambodia, and enabled children to participate in an event held to celebrate the importance of their own identities and existence.
At the Fair, Plan International Cambodia country director Sandy Fortuna said that without a birth certificate a child might suffer from many issues that include: early age marriage, labor, trafficking and sexual abuse.

Without timely registration at birth, it is difficult to get legal protection, as in judicial matters the age factor plays a critical role.
"A birth certificate leads to timely access to different social services and benefits, which a state offers through various departments. These include: education, health, employment, the right to vote and own a national identity card, and the right to inheritance," Fortuna said.
Also dressed in white and blue, like his audience, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior

Birth registration, as part of an effective civil registration system, according to Plan, can also play an important role in planning economic and social development: "Through proper data collection, a state’s ability to plan, monitor and report on economic and social issues, such as child mortality, can be improved." Ahmed explains the birth registration process.

"A child under Cambodian law is required to be registered within 30 days of birth at the commune/sangkat where his/her parents permanently live. If a child is born at a clinic, a letter from the clinic will be produced by the parent(s), guardian, or a reporter.
If a child is born at home, in this case a letter from the village chief [is required] mentioning name, parentage and date of birth of the child. When the request for registration of a child is made at the commune/sangkat office, [the] marriage certificate of the parents should also be presented in order to determine the status of the child."

Plan Cambodia’s Irina Dincu came up with a further idea, (which was then developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior) to increase the number of Cambodians registered: this time, in the form of a brightly-colored bus, which will travel from province to province, until the end of August 2006 when mobile registration will end.

"The bus is moving from place to place, providing information to the public—through films related to birth registration and quizzes," Ahmed says. "The campaign is fully supported by the Community of Santo Egidio, an Italian NGO."

The task of registering millions of people seemed incredibly daunting at the outset of the campaign in 2004. Shabir Ahmed says it "was not easy sailing."
"Two years ago, officials at the provincial, district and commune levels were in confusion over their role in civil registration; today they have full ownership and they know what they are doing." Irina Dincu says she personally thought the task impossible.

"When I came here in June 2004, everybody was estimating that my province of deployment—Phnom Penh—would never be able to register even 2 percent of [its] population. Now, Phnom Penh [has] registered over 90 percent," she says.

"I think I can say, that people invested themselves in the project; they believed in it, owned it, and made it come true. For me, the motto of this project is the saying attributed to Napoleon: "Impossible n’est pas Français". I believe that with the right energy, professionalism, creativity and commitment, everything is possible."

For 12-year-old Puthyka, and the millions of other Khmers now registered, it is possible to legally exist, here, in Cambodia.