to the civil registration authorities, which record the birth. A birth certificate can be collected at any
civil registration center in the country by simply presenting the bracelet (UNHCR 2017).121 Online birth
registration has the additional benefit of helping prevent tampering with birth dates to falsify the age of
girls at marriage (Human Rights Council 2014). An alternative preventative measure against the altering
of birth certificates is to issue the certificate on secure paper. In Guatemala, the National Civil Registry
(RENAP) issues birth certificates with security features, including pictures of the child and the parents, on
secure paper.122
Streamlining procedures is another effective practice to increase birth registration as it reduces the indirect
costs of registration, such as time, lost earnings from entrepreneurship or other work, and travel costs.
For example, birth certificates are not always issued immediately upon birth registration and a separate
application procedure is required. To overcome the barriers created by the indirect costs associated with
making the application, countries such as Morocco and Tanzania have combined birth registration and
the issuance of a birth certificate into one process.123 In Tanzania, the application can be done at hospitals
and health clinics at the time of immunization and is free of charge for children under the age of 5. Data
are transmitted via text message to a centralized system.124 In Brazil, maternity hospitals provide for birth
registration services, allowing parents to start the registration process even before going home with their
new baby.125 In Indonesia, a landmark Constitutional Court decision in 2013 removed a requirement that
the General Courts must provide a statement to get a birth certificate for a child over the age of 1 (Sumner
2015).126
Indonesia provides a good example of combining legal and regulatory reforms to remove gender-based
barriers to birth registration. Before the reforms, without proof of marriage, only the name of the mother
could be included on the certificate, which implied that the child was illegitimate. For Indonesians,
illegitimacy carries stigma, and so, parents who had traditional marriages or did not have marriage
certificates for other reasons were reluctant to register their children. The reforms implemented in 2014
have included the removal of administrative fees and provision of legal identity registration services in the
villages through integrated and mobile services (Integrated Service Centers) which provide both marriage
and birth registration services (Sumner 2015).
c) Removing discrimination against women from nationality laws
Over the last 15 years, several countries have succeeded in removing gender discrimination from nationality
laws.127 UNHCR reports that successful legal reforms have been achieved through simple legislation, often a
one-sentence provision replacing complicated legislation, granting men and women equal rights to confer
nationality (UNHCR 2015).
Often, these reforms have been catalyzed by CEDAW recommendations (described in box 4). In Algeria,
the old Nationality Code provided that an Algerian mother could confer nationality to a child if the father
was stateless, unknown, or a foreigner. After Algeria’s first hearing before CEDAW in 1999, the CEDAW
Committee recommended that the country reformed its nationality law to comply with Article 9(2).128 The
CEDAW Committee’s recommendations spurred a reform of the Nationality Code in 2005, which repealed
the limitations on Algerian mothers’ ability to confer nationality on their children, replacing them with a
simple provision granting Algerian nationality to all children born in or outside of Algeria to an Algerian
mother or father. The new provisions applied with retroactive effect, thus granting nationality to individuals
born to Algerian mothers and foreign fathers before the reform. In 2009, Algeria was able to remove its
previous reservation to Article 9(2) of CEDAW which requires states that are party to the convention to
grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children.
Similarly, Morocco’s old Nationality Code allowed women to confer nationality on their children only if the
father was unknown or stateless. The CEDAW Committee’s calls to bring the country’s nationality laws into
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ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO ID: GENDER-BASED LEGAL BARRIERS AGAINST WOMEN AND GOOD PRACTICE REFORMS