Invisible Children : A Field Study on the Hindrances to Obtain a Birth Certificate in Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia

Abstract: A birth certificate provides a child with a legal identity, nationality, is a vital action towards child protection and can help a child access social welfare. Worldwide, almost 230 million children under the age of five have not been registered. Other than the vast negative impacts on the child it creates a blind spot in population statistics. Indonesia is one of the countries where the problem is widespread - only 57 percent of the children under the age of five have a birth certificate. In December 2013 a law was ratified in Indonesia, imposing changes in the birth registration process. This paper seeks to explore how the target group of that law, i.e. parents, perceive their possibility to comply with the policy, that is, to obtain a birth certificate for their children.  Based on a field study in Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia, conducting in-depth interviews with 58 parents as well as stakeholders such as policy implementers and NGOs, this thesis will propose that there is a variance in how the policy has been implemented in different regencies. The results indicate that the variance in the implementation, as well as the policy setting prior implementation in each regency, affects the parents’ perceived possibility to comply. In one of the studied regencies the implementation of the policy has affected the parents’ possibility to comply in a critically negative way, increasing the hindrances to obtain a birth certificate. Further, the regency politicians have created forced incentives to comply by making birth certificate mandatory to register for school, creating a vast risk of removing childrens’ access to education.