Collaborating to safeguard children’s identity rights amid global challenges

What are children’s identity rights and why is it critical that we safeguard them for a child’s safety, development and wellbeing? 

There is no single, agreed legal definition of children’s identity rights in international law. In practice, however, the term is commonly used to capture a group of closely connected rights - the right to a name and birth registration, the right to acquire a nationality, and the right to family relations. Together, these elements form the foundation of a child’s identity, and if any of them are denied, undermined, or left unrecognised, children can become effectively “invisible” in ways that heighten protection risks—ranging from trafficking, abduction and exploitation, illegal adoption, to early marriage, abuse, and statelessness. Just as importantly, when birth registration and nationality are missing from the outset, children may be unable to access fundamental rights in practice, including basic rights such as education and healthcare. The implications of such barriers are detrimental and can cause lasting harm to a child’s wellbeing, safety, and development, including their self-esteem, confidence, and psychological security. 

The challenges affecting children’s identity rights are vast and deeply interconnected. Despite global efforts to make birth registration universal, it is estimated that worldwide, nearly 30% of children under one are still not registered at birth, and more than 200 million children under 5 years-old do not have a birth certificate.  Having a birth certificate is often a pre-condition to having a nationality as it records place of birth and legal filiation. Limited data and persistent under-reporting mean the number of stateless children globally is unknown, but it is widely understood to be in the millions and growing year-on-year. In addition, approximately 1.2 million children are adopted in cross-border contexts, and 8 million children are born through assisted reproductive technology.  And when a lack of identity rights and statelessness takes hold in childhood, it rarely ends with one generation: it can lock families into a cycle of exclusion that is passed down, making it harder for children—and their children—to access rights, protection, and a secure future. This confluence of factors places identity rights at the centre of protection efforts: they must be safeguarded to mitigate serious protection risks. 

How is the IDRWG addressing these challenges?   

The IDRWG is dedicated to placing children’s identity rights at the heart of the global agenda for children’s rights. The IDRWG is comprised of more than 25 international agencies and civil society organisations working on human rights, united by a shared commitment to advance children’s identity rights and covering all regions of the world. 

Member organisations work on a cross section of children’s identity rights issues including birth registration, nationality, statelessness, family relations, alternative care, children on the move, poverty reduction and the protection of children born of conflict related sexual violence. A core feature of how the IDRWG engages is through the meaningful participation of persons with lived experience. This grounds our engagement and initiatives in reality, ensuring their perspectives remain foremost in conversations, agenda-setting and advocacy.  

To date, the IDRWG has prioritised advocacy and policy work through UN Treaty Body mainstreaming activities, notably with the Committee on the Rights of the Child and Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, as well as submissions more broadly to the work of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. This work involves attending briefing sessions, influencing concluding observations and recommendations, as well as ensuring that identity rights remain on the UN radar. 

The importance of this work has only grown in the context of the UN’s ongoing liquidity crisis. Financial constraints are increasingly affecting the regularity, resourcing and capacity of Treaty Body sessions and thematic work. Despite these pressures, it is essential that progress and momentum are sustained so that children’s identity rights remain at the heart of change. In this context, it is vital that UN mechanisms are able to leverage the rich expertise and support of the IDRWG in keeping States accountable and ensuring that every child can enjoy every right in the CRC and other international standards. 

The IDRWG ongoing engagement with the Committee on the Rights of the Child has allowed it to approach children’s identity rights from multiple angles—highlighting just how intersectional the issue is. Through its advocacy activities, the IDRWG has also made submissions and drafted briefing notes on an array of other ‘nexus’ topics such as identity rights in education and in emergency contexts. These materials and activities are co-created in a way that leverages the diverse expertise of IDRWG members, while taking deliberate efforts to find common positioning in terms of identifying challenges and promising practices. The work of individual member organisations has also grounded the content of multiple webinars, co-convened by the IDRWG, which have served to raise awareness of the issue and produce a number of further knowledge resources. All IDRWG outputs and resources can be found on our website. 

What is IDRWG trying to achieve? 

The IDRWG focuses on the three main identity rights encompassed in the CRC, notably that of immediate birth registration, that every child should have a nationality and be able to know their origins and family relations. Across its engagement, the IDRWG foregrounds three overarching solutions and a series of targeted advocacy goals that it has identified as necessary to move towards fulfilment of identity rights for every child:  

Overarching solutions 

• Stronger normative guidance on children’s identity rights is needed: children’s identity rights are foundational, yet often treated as technical, secondary and disconnected. IDRWG exists to help shift that by strengthening the way these rights are understood, articulated, and applied across international and national contexts.

• Children’s identity rights must be recognised and treated as cross cutting - they intersect with protection from violence and exploitation, access to education and healthcare, family separation, trafficking, migration, adoption, assisted reproduction, disability, discrimination, and access to justice. IDRWG promotes a more joined-up approach—encouraging key treaty bodies to engage collectively and consistently on these cross-cutting issues, rather than addressing them in isolation.  

• Children’s identity rights are complex and require specific attention. Given the cross-cutting nature of children’s identity rights, we advocate for dedicated space for dialogue, learning and the co-creation of stronger guidance - such as a focused day or thematic discussion to match the depth and urgency of the problem and to drive action. 

Targeted solutions

• Reaffirm that every newborn must be registered immediately after birth, without exception, as required under Art. 7. Ensuring registration at birth strengthens universality and inclusiveness and directly reduces late and delayed registration. 

• Urge States to adopt non-discriminatory, inclusive Civil Registration and Vital Statistic laws and policies; implement a one-stop, fee-free process for both registration and certification; leverage sectoral platforms, especially health services and frontline workers, to reach every child; and invest in safe, innovative, and cost-effective digital systems that leave no one behind. 

• Ensure that nationality laws provide for the automatic grant of nationality to children born in the territory who would otherwise be stateless, regardless of parents’ legal, residency or other status; and to foundlings (without restrictions) 

• Help adoptees know their origins, including restoration of original identity if that is what they wish (e.g. legal reconnection back to their families of origin) 

• Prevent and address the identity gaps and potential sale of children in third party reproduction  

• Remove barriers to access to legal identity for children born as a result of rape and address the intersectional and cumulative rights violations they face 

Ultimately, the responsibility lies with States to adopt proactive, non-discriminatory policies and practices to protect and fulfil children’s identity rights. Drawing on the expertise of its membership, the IDRWG is pushing for stronger accountability and action on this issue. The IDRWG is advocating for more international guidance on the child’s right to identity including a General Comment from the CRC Committee and potentially conjointly with other treaty bodies. 

You can learn more about the work of IDRWG on Stateless Hub: https://www.statelesshub.org/theme/identity-rights-working-group 

For enquiries on how to join the IDRWG, contact Deneisha Moss (deneisha.moss@institutesi.org) or Mia Dambach (mia.dambach@child-identity.org)