Vietnam

Impact of the universal birth registration campaign

Before the universal birth registration campaign was launched in 2005

Before the campaign was launched, 70% of the general population were registered (figures for 1999). In 2005, 92.7% of under-fives were registered.

Following the campaign

The latest information shows that 94.8% of the general population are registered. In 2006, 88% of under-fives were registered.

Government policy and practice on birth registration

The right to birth registration has always received government attention and recognition in the law. For example, article 29 of the Civil Code says: “Individuals upon birth have rights to birth registration.” Article 11 of the Law on Child Protection, Care and Education says that: "Children have the right to birth registration and citizenship", and that children whose parents remain unidentified can request the relevant agencies to assist them in identifying their parents in accordance with the law. The Law on Citizenship regulates basic issues of citizenship and birth registration (articles 16, 17, 18 and 19).

The government has issued many decrees, circulars and directions to enhance household registration, including birth registration. These include a decree in October 1998 on household registration, and instructions on its implementation from the Ministry of Justice in 1999. Vietnam's national plan of action for children, 2001-10, contains the objectives of achieving birth registration for 80% of under-fives by 2005 and 90% by 2010. A Ministry of Justice programme adopted in 2001 organised a year for nationwide child birth registration, with the aim of achieving birth registration for every newborn. A government decree in 2005 included new regulations to improve children’s rights to birth registration and better procedures for household registration and birth registration.

The government supports Plan's UBR campaign in all eight programme units (Hanoi, Nam Ha, Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, Phu Tho, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Quang Ngai) and two non-sponsored mountainous provinces (Lang Son and Lai Chau). The Ministry of Justice aims to replicate Plan's model of birth registration in the mountainous areas in other mountainous provinces.

Universal birth rights campaign strategy

Plan, in partnership with the Legal and Administration Department of the Ministry of Justice and the provincial Department of Justice, launched the UBR campaign in March 2005. UBR activities took place in Plan’s programme units from January 2005 to December 2008, and a grant funded a project on UBR in mountainous areas from 2006 to December 2008.

Aim of campaign

To ensure implementation of child birth registration, especially for children in poor and ethnic communities, creating conditions for successful achievement of children’s rights.
To realise Vietnam’s commitment at the Regional Conference on Birth Registration to achieve children’s birth registration of 95% by 2010, aiming at 100%.

Objectives

To register 100% of unregistered children in all Plan supported communes.
To register 100% of unregistered children in all mountainous communes in the grant project.
To train 100% of justice staff in 19 Plan supported communes and two mountainous communes on birth registration procedure.
To enable 80% of households in the target communes to have access to information on birth registration.
To improve the professional knowledge and skills of commune and ward justice staff in all Plan’s supported communes and the grant project communes to meet the requirements of birth registration.
To improve awareness of birth registration by communal/ward leaders, families, community and children in all the target communes.
To set up regular birth registration work, as regulated by law, and create a mechanism to correct existing mistakes in birth registration certificates.
To advocate for changes in the law and policy on birth registration for children.

Strategy

To survey/assess the real situation of birth registration in the target communes, including unregistered children and those with incorrect information on birth certificates, and community leaders and parents awareness of birth registration.
To select justice staff at provincial and district level to be trained as local trainers.
To develop TOT training materials.
To conduct TOT training for local trainers, so that they could retrain community leaders and staff, including justice staff, police and child protection officers.
To organise information, education and communication campaigns and activities to raise awareness of child rights and birth registration for local leaders, parents and children.
To set up a mobile outreach birth registration team to reach remote villages to register all children.
To set up a coordination mechanism between justice and relevant departments working in birth registration and seek support from government authorities.
To set up a monitoring mechanism and reporting system,
To review the existing policies on birth registration and propose changes or additional instruction and guidance.
To hand over the model of birth registration for ethnic children in mountainous areas to our partner for continuity and replication.

Expenditure per year

2006: US$ 73,038

2007: US$ 93, 547

2008: US$206,019

2009: US$173,351

Outcomes

Policy and legislation changes

We organised a national workshop to give feedback and comments on the Ministry of Justice’s circular on birth registration for children.
We supported the Ministry of Justice's circular of 2 June 2008 to guide all community justice staff and community leaders on birth registration work.
We encouraged the Ministry of Justice to propose an exemption from the birth registration fee for ethnic children to the National Assembly, which resulted in the Prime Minister issuing a decision in November 2007 to exempt birth registration fee for all children.
We supported the justice, education and training, public security and home affairs ministries in surveying the different information held in birth certificates, school logbooks, diplomas, ID cards, family logbooks and other personal profiles. Based on the results of survey, the four ministries will submit a joint circular on correcting the differences in information held on personal documents to government for approval. We organised workshops with the four ministries, with participants from 30 provinces, which commented on the draft circular.

Government capacity and practice:

128 local trainers (selected provincial and district justice staff from six provinces) have been trained to become local trainers.
2,653 community staff (including community leaders, justice staff, police, child protection officers, teachers, health workers and relevant mass organisation members) have attended 80 professional training courses on the birth registration of children.

Monitoring and ensuring the implementation of policy and legislation related to UBR

A monitoring system from national to community level has been set up, as well as a reporting system from community to provincial and national level.
The legal administration department of the Ministry of Justice and provincial Department of Justice are responsible for monitoring and implementing policies and legislation related to UBR.

Waiver/reduction of costs

Before November 2007, only children from poor families could get birth certificates free of charge, but from 1 November 2007, all children in Vietnam have benefited from the Prime Minister’s direction making birth registration free.

Partnerships, coordination, cooperation, alliances and coalitions

The direct partners in UBR projects are the Department of Legal Administration (Ministry of Justice) – which is responsible for children’s birth registration - and provincial departments of justice. Provincial and district departments of justice and commune justice boards come under the Ministry of Justice, and are under the management of the respective people’s committee level (which are executive bodies of the government).
The Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Education and Training), Ministry of Health , Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs) and Ministry of Home Affairs coordinate and cooperate at national level to research and study current policies and propose change to fulfil the birth registration right for all children.
Close coordination and cooperation between justice staff, police, teachers and health workers/midwifes at community level was developed to ensure all newborn children are registered after birth, and that the birth certificate is used for family registration, the issue of a health insurance card and to enrol children into pre-school/kindergarten.

Community awareness

There was an intensive community awareness approach during the UBR project. Research and surveys showed that the main causes of non-registration were poor awareness of child rights and birth registration rights, the benefits of having a birth certificate and the importance of a birth certificate in children's development. The project showed that direct communication using audio-visual technologies was the most effective means of communication in rural areas, especially remote mountainous areas, and that raising awareness of local leaders, parents and children was effective and helped implementation of the project. Raising awareness of local people and children in mountainous communes needs to be repeated yearly, and needs to be done many different ways.

Ownership and sustainability (Have the duty-bearers, the state, taken responsibility? How have rights-holders, communities, and civil society been involved to ensure sustainability?)

Local partners and children themselves designed the project, especially the communication activities. They planned quarterly and monthly activities at community and village level.
Local trainers will continue to work for the justice system, and can organise upgrading training courses for other community justice staff in the future.
The justice staff trained in the UBR project will continue birth registration work for children at provincial/ district and community level with better qualifications and following legislation.
The mobile outreach birth registration activities will continue regularly and strengthen birth registration management.
The awareness of child rights by communes, people and children will improve, especially children's right to be registered, and they will pay more attention to their responsibilities for birth registration. This will ensure sustainability in birth registration implementation. The integration of birth registration issues into community/village meetings is a responsibility of community justice staff and people's committees leaders and members.
Justice staff will play the key role in birth registration, with the participation of relevant departments. The UBR project has improved the attitude and behaviour of department staff and mass organisation members to child rights and the right to be registered.

The integration of the issue of birth registration with other programmes such as maternal health

Community health workers and midwifes were trained and took part in the UBR project. They encourage mothers to register their child after delivery. The birth certificate will be the basic document for issuing free health treatment insurance cards for children under five.

Registering the most marginalised and hard to reach communities (ethnic minorities, nomadic groups, orphans, street children, migrants and refugees etc)

Plan in Vietnam focuses on poor, ethnic and disadvantaged children, and Plan projects are non-discriminatory for all children. The main target groups in UBR projects are ethnic minorities and poor children.

Tackling the related issues of migration, nationality and statelessness

Once children have a birth certificate, their nationality will be recorded, and the certificate will be the prime personal document in case they migrate.

Linking birth registration to other children’s rights, such as increased access to health, education, inheritance rights and protection from trafficking, child labour etc

With a birth certificate, children under five can access free healthcare services at health centres and hospitals. The name and date of birth from birth certificates also appear in the list of children to be enrolled into school. Older children can go to vocational schools, colleges or universities and have correct information from their birth certificate on their personal record.

With birth certificates, children will be protected from any harm.

Involving children in the UBR campaign

The participation of children, partners and stakeholders in this project was crucial. The children have become aware of their right to be registered at birth, and are asking their parents/local authorities to do that. Their participation has increased their ownership of the project and helps its sustainability. Children need to understand the importance of birth registration and pass this on to their own children when they are grown. In the meantime, they have become propagandists on this issue with their friends and parents, including reminding parents to get birth certificate for their siblings.

Children have participated in project planning. In the beginning, they were invited to participate in a “detail implementation plan” workshop where children discussed an overall plan with local authorities and parents. The main issues raised by children were:

the lack of child rights information, including birth registration;
the lack of attention to birth registration by parents and local authorities;
the lack of professional knowledge and skill of justice officials at community level;
the lack of birth registration forms;
misunderstanding of the importance of birth registration in children's development.

Their voices were heard and respected, and reflected in the project detail implementation plan. Information, education and communication activities will address the improvement of knowledge and awareness of child rights, birth registration right, and attention by parents and local authorities Professional training for justice officials, community leaders and relevant staff will address the weakness of professional skills.

Children are always consulted on project activities, especially in the design of information, education and communication materials, and including UBR for ethnic children. Children were consulted in the design of activities that affected them through dialogue, meetings and recreational activity, and in monitoring. They were the ones to provide the information.

Good practice

Professional training for local justice staff, especially at community level. In mountainous areas, this was on-the-job training, due to the low education level of justice staff, using case studies and role play, with guidance from trainers.
The involvement of relevant staff - including people's committee leaders, justice staff, education managers and teachers, police and mass organisation members - and children themselves. In the mountainous areas, most children’s birth registration has been through teachers, mass organisation members and community staff. Child rights and the birth registration right have been communicated through schools and in community activities, such as village and community meetings and “enrolment in school” days, and through targeting different groups.
A range of departments coordinated and cooperated to unify the personal information held on ID cards, birth certificates, school logbooks and health insurance cards. The database of each department will be changed accordingly, requiring close cooperation.
The mobile outreach to villages for birth registration for children involved relevant community staff and mass organisation members. The outreach mobile birth registration model used in mountainous areas involved different staff, especially the head of village, and was integrated with raising awareness on child and birth registration rights through talking with parents and relatives to ensure that the cultures of different local ethnic groups were taken into consideration

Challenges, gaps and barriers

The lack of justice officials, especially at community/ward level, and the turnover and instability of justice staff.
Language barriers, low literacy levels and poor awareness of child and birth registration rights in some remote ethnic villages hinder their access to information.
Mobile UBR work in the mountainous areas can be affected by the passive attitude of ethnic minority groups, some of which have different taboos, and the size of communes with difficult terrain, scattered population and harsh weather (such as prolonged rain and flooding).
High poverty rates are associated with low awareness of human rights and child rights, including birth registration.
Weak cooperation and coordination between different departments and sectors from provincial to commune levels.
The late naming of a child after birth as a tradition in some ethnic minorities.
Telephone and fax communication can be weak in mountainous and isolated communes, delaying information sharing and keeping government policies up to date.
Limited awareness among local people of UBR in particular and children’s rights in general.

National level recommendations

Despite encouraging gains in birth registration, there are still many problems, particularly in mountainous and seashore areas.

Over half of Vietnam's provinces (34 out of 63) are wholly or partly mountainous, with mostly ethnic minority communities. The Ministry of Justice has targeted mountainous areas for attention to overcome the difficulties and further promote birth registration, particularly for ethnic children. These areas require attention by the government, Ministry of Justice and localities, as well as support from international and civil society organisations, including Plan in Vietnam.
Plan in Vietnam will continue to ensure that all children in its sponsorship areas are registered, and will support provincial Departments of Justice in promoting birth registration work for children into other districts and communes.

Future activities

Plan will maintain the partnership with the Ministry of Justice to review the legislation and policies on birth registration for children, conduct research, and survey the justice-related issues that affect children for further projects to address these.
Plan programme units will continue working on birth registration for all children in their project districts and communes.

Do you have any high-profile supporters of Plan’s UBR campaign?

Plan in Vietnam UBR projects were fully supported by the two vice-ministers of Justice, Hoang The Lien and Dinh Trung Tung. They were present at the memorandum signing ceremony between the Ministry of Justice and Plan in Vietnam, and in the UBR project closing ceremony, as well as sharing the project report with other stakeholders.
Plan in Vietnam UBR grant project was funded by Plan Finland (Plan FLNO).

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