"Through the decades that the Daulatdia brothel in Bangladesh has existed, children born there have been invisible, unable to be registered because their mothers were sex workers and their fathers unknown. Now, for the first time, all 400 of them in the brothel village have their own birth certificates. That milestone was reached after a push by campaigners who have spent decades working with Bangladesh's undocumented children born in brothels or on the street."
"The denial of a birth certificate and the precarious life that followed was because officials had always demanded the name and documentation of the father, despite them being unknown. They didn't have the rights of a citizen previously they were treated as alien in society, said Khaleda Akhter, Bangladesh programme manager for the London-based anti-slavery organisation Freedom Fund. She added that the reform gives them their fundamental rights,"
Children born in the Daulatdia brothel were historically unregistered because mothers were sex workers and fathers were unknown, leaving them without citizenship rights. Campaigners from the Freedom Fund and local organisations located and registered 400 children in Daulatdia and more than 700 across brothels elsewhere. Advocates discovered an overlooked 2018 legal provision allowing births to be registered without parental information and disseminated that guidance widely. Government officials had routinely demanded a father's name and documentation, blocking registration. Teams partnered with civil society to collect information and submit registrations, enabling access to schooling, passports, and the vote.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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