Universal registration is the foundation of human rights protection: PROGGA
Experts say that amending the Birth and Death Registration Act, 2004, to shift registration duties to health facilities would automatically register roughly 67% of births that occur in medical institutions.
Tomorrow (10 December) marks International Human Rights Day. This year's theme is "Human Rights: Our everyday essentials."
Legal identity is one of the most fundamental pillars of human rights protection, and it can only be ensured through universal birth and death registration.
According to the research and advocacy organisation PROGGA, at present, Bangladesh's average birth registration rate stands at only 50%, indicating that nearly half of the population still struggles to access fundamental rights such as education and healthcare due to the absence of legal identity.
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Lack of registration worsens various human rights violations in the country, including child labor, child marriage, and human trafficking. Similarly, the lack of death registration makes inheritance harder to prove and fuels property disputes, reads a press release.
Experts say that amending the Birth and Death Registration Act, 2004, to shift registration duties to health facilities would automatically register roughly 67% of births that occur in medical institutions.
Such a reform would significantly accelerate the achievement of the CRVS decade target of universal registration and SDG 16.9, which aims to provide legal identity for all.
On the occasion, ABM Zubair, executive director of PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress), expressed, "Violations of human rights begin with the absence of legal identity. The registration process must be made more citizen-friendly through legal reform, so that no one remains without identity and everyone can equally enjoy fundamental rights."
