Children’s Rights to Nationality

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken… (Joseph) He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child” (Luke 2, 1.5).

More than 2,000 years later, we still find situations where men and women, and children, lack nationality. Nationality is a right; it should be an effective right of every person. The United Nations advocates that every child, from the moment of birth, has the right to acquire a nationality. A nationality can be obtained by the place of birth or by the place of residence.

Not having a nationality can mean that the boy or girl lives in a situation of social exclusion, which will hinder their access to other fundamental rights such as education or health. Sadly, even today and for different reasons, there are children who lack this fundamental right. Boys and girls who become stateless.

Nationality is a right that is part of a person’s identity, as well as name and surname, the gender and date of birth. All this allows people to acquire an identity within a specific society. This lack leads to the impossibility of being a full part of the life of society.

We know that the causes of statelessness can be various (parental conditions, belonging to certain ethnic groups…); and the most common is that caused by parents who do not go to the Vital Statistics Office to register their newborns.

Sometimes, as happened to Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, thousands of people are forced to emigrate, to seek a better life in other countries. Many of these people, in addition to having to leave their homes, their lands, are forced to live without recognition by the State where they arrive, due to the legal and institutional barriers that the countries establish. For this reason, although they have a nationality, they have difficulties in creating their own personal identity, which is so necessary for full personal development.

We, Marists of Champagnat, have to continue working for the elimination of any type of border, we are called to be builders of bridges between people, between social groups, between States.

Pope Francis, in the encyclical Fratelli Tutti, reminds us of the need to eliminate barriers, to walk beyond them. He reminds us how these borders, many times, violate human dignity, how borders entail the absence of rights for people, especially the most vulnerable, including girls and boys.

In the parable of the “Good Samaritan” we are reminded of the Christian way of proceeding, the way of caring for our “neighbour”, a close one whom we sometimes discover lying in the ditches of life, on the peripheries of the world. Helping those who need it is an inalienable Christian attitude.

Many Marists, brothers, lay people, are working with people without documentation, especially with children and young people. Thank you for your testimony. This is the path, making visible those who are “hidden” in our societies, developing actions that promote the full development of the most vulnerable in our environments, being the “prophetic voice” and the “merciful action” of God in our world.

Br. Ángel Diego García Otaola – Director of the Secretariaty of Solidarity