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About this brief
Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions- Reduced Inequality
- For development
- Dominican Republic
- Haiti
- Brief created: 2021
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Bringing the Border to Baby: Birth Registration as Bordering Practice for Migrant Women’s Children
Brief about:
Journal Article (2019)
Written by:
This research explores the ways babies born to migrant and refugee women are being excluded from birth registration and calls for rights defenders to recognize and resist these practices, focusing on the Dominican Republic’s denial of birth certificates for people of Haitian descent.
This research outlined how birth registration requirements are made more restrictive in migration receiving countries as a means of discouraging migration and excluding their descendants from citizenship or accessing rights.
It provided an overview of some exclusionary birth registration practices in the United States (Texas) and Israel which may prevent migrants (particularly women) and their families from obtaining birth certificates for their children. Focusing mainly on birth registration practices in the Dominican Republic which create a risk of statelessness for descendants of Haitian migrants.
Key findings
- Border enforcement can happen even inside a country's borders, such as the institutions involved in birth registration (e.What it means
g. hospitals and civil registry offices). Migrant women are therefore controlled through their reproductive lives, as migration enforcement is happening in the birth registration process.
- Specifically, within the Dominican Republic, children born to Haitian migrant women or Dominican women of Haitian descent are at risk of remaining undocumented and stateless because their births have not been properly registered or they have not been claimed by a second parent with documented Dominican citizenship.
- Obstacles to birth registration are thinly veiled attempts to deny citizenship to Haitian migrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic, while continuing to exploit them as expendable labour force participants.
Proposed action
- Practitioners working to strengthen birth registration as part of efforts to implement SDG 16
9 on legal identity for all should be aware of the specific obstacles that migrant and refugee women face when attempting to obtain birth certificates for their children. These efforts must work to ensure non-discrimination in the strengthening of civil registration and vital statistics systems, and the fulfilment of the human right to a nationality for all.
- Practitioners can advocate for and implement firewalls or prohibitions against information sharing between health personnel or other service providers and migration enforcement
Healthcare workers should be free to fulfil their role of providing care, and should not have migration enforcement or nationality determination responsibilities.
- Dominican Republic
Passing the proposed legislation on Paternal Responsibility would enable single mothers to opt for required paternal recognition on children's birth certificates and thus make it easier to access the civil registry for children of mixed couples.
- Dominican Republic
The Ministry of Public Health and other bureaucratic and healthcare departments would benefit from the elimination of the use of separate birth notification forms (which are used to distinguish babies born as citizens and noncitizens) and create one universal form used for all new births.
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Jasmyn Spanswick for preparation assistance
We would like to extend a special thank you to Jasmyn Spanswick, for their invaluable contribution in assisting the preparation of this research summary.
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Bringing the Border to Baby: Birth Registration as Bordering Practice for Migrant Women’s Children
Cite this brief: Petrozziello, Allison. 'Bringing the Border to Baby: Birth Registration as Bordering Practice for Migrant Women’s Children'. Acume. https://www.acume.org/r/bringing-the-border-to-baby-birth-registration-as-bordering-practice-for-migrant-womens-children/
Brief created by: Allison Petrozziello | Year brief made: 2021
Original research:
- Petrozziello, A., ‘Bringing the Border to Baby: Birth Registration as Bordering Practice for Migrant Women’s Children’ 27(1) (pp. 31–47) https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2019.1570724. – https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13552074.2019.1570724
Research brief:
This research explores the ways babies born to migrant and refugee women are being excluded from birth registration and calls for rights defenders to recognize and resist these practices, focusing on the Dominican Republic’s denial of birth certificates for people of Haitian descent.
This research outlined how birth registration requirements are made more restrictive in migration receiving countries as a means of discouraging migration and excluding their descendants from citizenship or accessing rights.
It provided an overview of some exclusionary birth registration practices in the United States (Texas) and Israel which may prevent migrants (particularly women) and their families from obtaining birth certificates for their children. Focusing mainly on birth registration practices in the Dominican Republic which create a risk of statelessness for descendants of Haitian migrants.
Findings:
Border enforcement can happen even inside a country’s borders, such as the institutions involved in birth registration (e.
g. hospitals and civil registry offices). Migrant women are therefore controlled through their reproductive lives, as migration enforcement is happening in the birth registration process.
Specifically, within the Dominican Republic, children born to Haitian migrant women or Dominican women of Haitian descent are at risk of remaining undocumented and stateless because their births have not been properly registered or they have not been claimed by a second parent with documented Dominican citizenship.
Obstacles to birth registration are thinly veiled attempts to deny citizenship to Haitian migrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic, while continuing to exploit them as expendable labour force participants.
Advice:
Practitioners working to strengthen birth registration as part of efforts to implement SDG 16
- 9 on legal identity for all should be aware of the specific obstacles that migrant and refugee women face when attempting to obtain birth certificates for their children. These efforts must work to ensure non-discrimination in the strengthening of civil registration and vital statistics systems, and the fulfilment of the human right to a nationality for all.
Practitioners can advocate for and implement firewalls or prohibitions against information sharing between health personnel or other service providers and migration enforcement
- Healthcare workers should be free to fulfil their role of providing care, and should not have migration enforcement or nationality determination responsibilities.
Dominican Republic
- Passing the proposed legislation on Paternal Responsibility would enable single mothers to opt for required paternal recognition on children’s birth certificates and thus make it easier to access the civil registry for children of mixed couples.
Dominican Republic
- The Ministry of Public Health and other bureaucratic and healthcare departments would benefit from the elimination of the use of separate birth notification forms (which are used to distinguish babies born as citizens and noncitizens) and create one universal form used for all new births.