Naw Blooming Night Zan, an executive member of CPPCR, said to KIC News: “There are no guarantee for children from refugee camps and of migrants. We plan to make the [Burmese Government] officially recognise the birth certificates we have made as well as other children that will be born in the future.”

The CPPCR has been recording the births of children born to migrant workers in Thailand since 2004 and it has provided over 20,000 birth certificates.

All children born in Burma can have their births registered and birth certificates issued to them at hospitals, township health departments, and rural health departments.

Currently, many children in the Thai-Burma border area and in rural areas of Karen State are not being registered so they are losing their rights and protections because they have no birth certificates, according to border health organisations.

The CPPCR met with the Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House) Women and Children’s Rights Committee, the Women’s Organisations Network (WON) from Rangoon, the Rangoon Region Karen Affairs Minister and the Karen State Chief Minister Nan Khin Htwe Myint from 21 to 23 November to discuss the birth certificate issue.

Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, the Amyotha Hluttaw (Upper House) Women and Children’s Rights Committee secretary, said: “All the committee members accept this since these children are our children and they deserve their rights.”

At the meetings Burmese Government officials advised the CPPCR to write a report about the birth certificate issue. The CPPCR will discuss the issue internally before deciding on its future plans.

Eight health organisations from the Thai-Burma border will also meet with the Karen State government on 28 November to discuss their work providing birth certificates to migrant children.

Border-based health, children’s rights, and health organisations founded the CPPCR to protect children’s rights and provide birth certificates in Mae Sot, Thailand in 2002.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI