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Hi, my name is Emily Boehme and I’m an intern here at New Tactics and also a student at the University of Minnesota. I’m participating in a human rights internship class where we are working on a project for increased birth registration in southern Sudan.  I’m really interested in hearing feedback from people on the issue of birth registration, and learning what kinds of tactics people have used in birth registration campaigns.  The project was started by an NGO, Child Protection International (CPI), which is based here in Minnesota.  Their mission is in part to:  work to bring attention to child abduction, child trafficking, and the exploitation of children.  Below is some basic information about our project:

•  In 2007, a former student of the internship class that I’m participating in now who is from southern Sudan, discovered that his two nieces, ages 1 ½ and 3, had been abducted from their homes there.  The practice of inter-tribal abductions is not a rare in southern Sudan.  As a way to address the issue of child abduction and as a way to try and recover the two little girls, the class started the Save-Yar campaign, which then developed into Child Protection International.

• Child Protection International is working on the issue of child abduction both in southern Sudan and internationally.  The lack of a well-run and maintained birth registration system in southern Sudan is a huge obstacle in the recovering of abducted children.  The two little girls, like many children in southern Sudan, were not registered at birth.  If the little girls were found, it is likely that they would look different and speak a different language.  Without birth registration, this has important implications for returning the girls to their family and even in determining their identity.

•  As a way to prevent this from happening in the future and as a way to prevent and reduce child trafficking, our class is working on a campaign for birth registration in southern Sudan, and is pushing for the government in south Sudan to further develop and improve their birth registration system.

•  We are looking for other NGOs who have performed similar campaigns or who work on the issue of birth registration to join or support us.  We haven’t formulated an exact plan of action, but are holding a conference on May 4 at the University of Minnesota with the hopes of meetings with governmental figures and NGO representatives who can perhaps help us to form a concrete plan of action on how to go about initiating a birth registration campaign within the country.

• As a group, we recognize that the right to a name, nationality, and identity are rights codified in international law.  According to Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child should be registered immediately following birth.  We also recognize that the right to be registered at birth has wide-reaching implications and can help children to receive access to education, healthcare, and can protect young people from under-age military conscription and child trafficking.

• The effects of not being registered at birth that are listed above are only a few of the many rights of which birth registration is an integral step.  While the issue of birth registration is important in southern Sudan, I also want to recognize that it is important everywhere, and there are many countries in which the lack of a system of birth registration can have dire effects on the rights of a child.

We are currently working on several initiatives.  The first is reaching out to UN mechanisms, including UNICEF to see what needs to be done to launch a successful birth registration campaign.  The second is reaching out to governmental groups, both in Sudan and within the United States to try to garner support for this campaign.  The last initiative is the development of a case-study on Sierra Leone which examines the tactics used by Plan and UNICEF in Sierra Leone during the birth registration campaign that was launched there.  Already New Tactics community members have been helpful in finding information to include in the case-study, so my thanks goes out to them.

If anyone else has information regarding birth registration in Sierra Leone and the impact of the birth registration campaign that has taken place there over the past couple of years, I would be really grateful to hear any information anyone has.  I would love to hear people’s thoughts on this issue. If anyone has worked on the issue of birth registration and found tactics helpful, I’d really enjoy hearing about people’s experiences in the field. I look forward to hearing input from people.