Improving Access to Health Services through Birth Registration

In Tajikistan children risk being excluded from the formal health system because they lack legal status. Save the Children in Tajikistan, has launched a project to tackle this barrier to health services by promoting birth registration.

If children are registered at birth they have the right to access health services. Without a birth certificate they may be unable to get treatment and may miss out on vital services like vaccinations. Not only does birth registration give children a right to healthcare but it also improves their access to education, makes them eligible for social welfare and when they grow up allows them to become fully enfranchised members of society. However, awareness of the benefits of registering births is low. A survey conducted by Save the Children found that 20% of families were unaware of any reasons why birth registration is important.

One part of Save the Children’s “Improving Children’s Access to Health Services” project aims to remedy this through delivering trainings in communities on why birth registration is important for children’s wellbeing and how to do it. Save the Children staff have received training from the Office for Registration of Civil Status on how to register births and are now busy disseminating this information in communities. Save the Children trainers are working with women’s groups, established under the DFID-funded Women’s Wealth and Influence project, to raise awareness of this issue. Once women’s groups have received training, they will pass on their knowledge to the wider community and work to ensure that children currently excluded from the health system gain access. In particular, women’s groups will work with pregnant rural marginalized women and their families to make them aware of the importance of birth registration and support them to ensure that once the women give birth their babies are registered in a timely manner.

On 18 June 2013 training sessions took place in Gardi Gulmurod jamoat, Jilikul district. Women from six community based groups gathered for the session which covered key topics such as the importance of birth registration, problems unregistered children face, the process for registering babies and older children and how birth registration supports children’s rights as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. To help them pass on the information, women’s groups were provided with a lesson plan that includes interactive tasks like role plays to help them conduct training themselves.

The training was well received. Nargis, a local doctor, explained that she had recently held a vaccination day at her clinic. One mother came but neither of her young children had a birth certificate. Nargis had to explain that you have to be registered to receive vaccinations. This time Nargis said that she bent the rules and provided the vaccinations – but other health workers might not as it creates administrative problems for health centers. Nargis said, “Until today we didn’t know quite how important a birth certificate was. As a result of the project I realize what a big issue this is and will work with women to convince them to get a birth certificate in good time.”

Women’s groups and village councils across the Vakhsh and Jilikul districts of Khatlon region will receive training in the coming months. Together with Save the Children they will work to identify and overcome barriers that children face in accessing health services.