Why Obama's ‘scrap of paper’ is the real star of the show

In amongst the furore and posturing over President Obama’s birth certificate, there will be real chords struck for millions of people across the world.

If Obama had been born in Kenya or Indonesia, it is unlikely he would have even had owned a birth certificate- long-form or otherwise. Even today, around half of all babies born in those countries, do not receive one.

The subject of nationality, citizenship and ‘Birthers’ questioning his constitutional right to govern is what has got so many people hot under the collar but it has highlighted the power of the humble birth certificate.

This small scrap of paper has the potential to unlock doors that would otherwise remain closed to many

A formal identity gives children access to a state’s education, health and social services and allows the right to vote, to work legally, open a bank account and inherit land and property. But, lack of formal I.D leaves children vulnerable to trafficking, early child marriage, hazardous labour, risk of imprisonment in adult prisons and conscription as child soldiers. In times of conflict and disaster it makes tracing and reuniting displaced children with families more difficult and traumatic.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who helped launch Plan International’s Universal Birth Registration campaign in 2005 said: “It is the key that opens the door to the rights and benefits of citizenship”.

As President Obama has shown in dramatic style, a birth certificate can be a passport to rights, a future as an active citizen who not only has a say in their nation’s future, but can lead it.

Plan's Universal Birth Registration Campaign

Since 2005, Plan's campaign has enabled more than 40 million people across 32 countries, most of them children, to be traced and issued with birth certificates and has helped to improve laws in 10 countries – enabling access to registration for an additional estimated 153 million people.

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