Haiti - Social : António Guterres advocates for the registration of births
António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last week made a visit to Haiti. Mr. Guterres met with the outgoing Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, members of the cabinet of President Michel Martelly, the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Haiti and Head of the Minustah, Mariano Fernández Amunátegui and the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, Nigel Fisher.
"I came to discuss with the government of an essential question for us in the support to the Haitians, especially abroad, particularly in the Dominican Republic: the enormous need for a system of birth registration and civil status that can help protect the interests and rights of Haitians in their country and outside," said Mr. Guterres.
The UNHCR as part of an inter agency working group which he chairs, and to which also participate Haitian organizations, working "to diagnose the civil registry in Haiti and identify recommendations to send to the Haitian Government to modernize the civil registry, thus reducing the dysfunction of the system while advocating on the necessity for the country to access international conventions that protect stateless persons", explains Innocent Sangara, Administrator of Protection within the agency.
In Haiti, only 25% of births are registered and many citizens have lost their identification documents after the earthquake of January 2010. In the camp of Maïs Gâté 1, "between 600 and 700, of the approximately 1.500 living there have lost their identity documents in the earthquake or following accidents caused by bad weather" has informed the coordinator of the relief Committee of Maïs Gâté 1 (COSEM), Jean Prospère Destin. And for the displaced living in camps, it is particularly difficult to get new ones. In addition, most Haitian migrants are facing enormous difficulties related to their identification documents.
