Making the Newest Citizens: Achieving Universal Birth Registration in Contemporary Brazil

Abstract

Identity documentation is essential to secure the rights, benefits, and services that modern states provide. Historically, significant numbers of poor Brazilians lacked core documents, beginning with a birth certificate. In recent years the government has conducted a campaign to rectify this situation. We explore why the state left so many Brazilians without a birth certificate previously and why it became intent on registering all births, as reflected in recent efforts to facilitate the process. Key in this regard is the movement from a social policy orientation that excluded poor Brazilians in the informal sector to one aimed at including them.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Brodwyn Fischer, Frances Hagopian, Robert Kaufman, James W. McGuire, Ilse Oehler, Alexandre Borges Sugiyama, and Michael Touchton. The data presented in this article are available at https://uwm.edu/political-science/people/sugiyama-natasha-borges/.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Birth registration is the state’s official recording of a birth. A birth certificate constitutes an individual’s proof of the state’s legal recognition.

2. Hunter and Brill (2016) discuss the broader global context in which the newfound attention to birth registration has evolved.

3. For example, in South Africa, whereas only 78 per cent of children under five years of age were registered in 2006, 85 per cent were registered by 2012. In Turkey, whereas only 84 per cent of children under five years of age were registered in 2003, 99 per cent were registered by 2013. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.REG.BRTH.ZS

4. Interviews with federal and local officials took place in three waves, first in June and July 2009, July 2011, and May 2014.

5. The authors oversaw the administration of 11 focus groups in June–July 2009. Four groups were held in Camaragibe (two male/two female) and four groups in Jaboatão dos Guararapes (one male/three female), both in the state of Pernambuco. Three groups were held in Pau Brasil (one male/two female) in the state of Bahia. All participants were beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família. Groups were not designed to be representative. All discussions were moderated by social scientists from the region where meetings took place and followed a standard script. Moderators worked with the local community to recruit poor residents for focus groups; no financial incentives were provided. Testimonies are reported anonymously to protect our participants.

6. Brazil is a large federal country marked by its internal socio-economic variation, even within states. This diversity complicates aggregation of data to state or regional level when the covariates of interest include these key background conditions.

7. ‘País forma gerações de sem-documentos’, Fernanda da Escóssia, Folha de São Paulo, 1 January 2003.

8. Estimation of the sub-registro has been greatly facilitated in recent years, as more babies are born in health clinics (upwards of 95% for roughly the last two decades). Since 1994, the Ministry of Health instituted a database, SINASC (Sistema de Nascidos Vivos or System of Live Births) to produce more better information on declarations of live births. See IBGE (2015) for an excellent and concise review of the census methodology. See also Schmid (2009) for a full discussion of the methodology behind estimating non-registration among live births.

9. Some big cities (for example, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) have large absolute numbers of unregistered children. The government cannot therefore abandon efforts in such locations (L. Leonardes, author interview, Brasília. May 26 2014; B. Garrido author interview, Brasília. May 26 2014). See da Escóssia (2014).

10. The SIDRA data allow for analysis of time-to-registration but cannot capture those people who were born but never registered during their lifetime.

11. Upon request, the authors will make available the data on other regions.

12. http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/bda/tabela/listabl.asp?z=t&o=27&i=P&c=2679

13. Examples of intentional exclusion include the Dominican Republic vis-`a-vis

Dominicans of Haitian descent, Kenya toward Kenyans of Nubian heritage, and Myanmar toward the Rohingya.

14. Some exceptions were made. For example, if a family lived 30 kilometers or more from a cartório it had up to three months before incurring a late penalty (Frías et al., 1991, p. 52).

15. For example, in a survey conducted in 1968 in São Paulo, more than half of all mothers who had not yet obtained birth certificates for their children identified paternity-related issues as the source of their inaction (Milanesi & Silva, 1968).

16. See Carvalho (2004); Collier and Collier (1991); Huber and Stephens (2012).

17. Even in São Paulo, which had the highest rate of birth registration, it is thought that 35.7 per cent of all children were not registered in 1940 (Fischer, 2008, p. 123).

18. Those who did not qualify for rural previdência might instead qualify for the RMV (renda mensal vitalícia), a means-tested, noncontributory pension for those over 70 (Law 6,179/1974). Another programme, the BPC (Beneficio de Prestação Continuada), was instituted in 1996. To receive it, a person must be 65 years of age and have a family income of less than one quarter of the minimum wage. See Ansileiro and Paiva (2008), Brill (2013), and Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social (2015).

19. It is also relevant that Brazilians are having fewer children and recognising the value in small family size (Potter, Schmertmann, Assunção, & Cavenaghi, 2010).

20. The Programa Saúde da Família (PSF, Family Health Program) has been crucial in diminishing infant mortality (Macinko, Guanais, & Souza, 2006, McGuire, 2010, p. 170–1; Sugiyama, 2013, p. 173 and 219). Started in the northeast in 1994, it restructured primary health services so as to reach out to families in their communities. Beyond providing health care, the PSF improved information on vital statistics (Rasella, Aquino, & Barreto, 2010).

21. https://www.wwp.org.br/en/unified-registry-0

22. For this reason, in 1994 the Ministry of Health began undertaking its own efforts to document live births.

23. http://www2.oabsp.org.br/asp/clipping_jur/ClippingJurDetalhe.asp?id_noticias=7218&AnoMes=19991

24. With the 1988 Constitution, the federal government started to regulate the cartório system in a more uniform fashion, including requiring new registrars to pass a national public exam.

25. In other parts of the developing world, the biometric national identity document has been a fast-track to the delivery of social services (Asian Development Bank, 2016).

26. See for example RECIVIL (2010).

27. The municipal government of Jaboatão dos Guararapes in the state of Pernambuco ran this campaign.

28. ‘Entra em vigor lei que permite à mãe registrar filho no cartório.’ Rede Brasil Atual. Brasília: Agência Câmara. 31 March 2015.

29. This law is available at: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/L8560.htm

30. This law is available at: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2007-2010/2009/lei/l12004.htm

31. See for example, (Secretaria Especial dos Direitos Humanos da Presidencia da República. n.d, Secretaria Executiva de Direitos Humanos e Segurança Cidadã de Jaboatão dos Guararupes, n.d.)

32. This was displayed in the office of the Secretaria de Assistência Social (Department of Social Welfare), Camaragibe, PE, 7 July 2011. This poster, entitled, ‘Abrace este direito’ (Embrace this Right) was part of a UNICEF campaign in the northeastern states of Alagoas, Paraiba, and Pernambuco.

33. This poster was designed and distributed by the state government of Alagoas (Fundo Especial para o Registro Civil de Alagoas).

34. The Secretariat of Human Rights has designed a multifaceted campaign, Comitê Gestor Nacional de Registro de Nascimento e Documentação Básica (n.d., 2010).

35. Since no written description could possibly do these catchy promotion cips justice, we refer the reader to the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaVqqUdWymw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn2iI-c0HJU&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtSoT5P91ZA&feature=related