“The Bush administration is expected to allow children aged 15 or younger with parental consent to be allowed to cross the borders at land and sea entry points with a certified copy of their birth certificates rather than passports.” AP Feb 22 2007
The above news reminds me of the children who have no birth certificates. Generally, a registered hospital or clinic provides birth certificate as soon as a child was born. However, I wonder how many illegal Burmese migrant women in Thailand have a chance to delivery their offsprings in those Thai hospitals and clinics. Usually, they come to an unregistered clinic known as Dr Cynthia's Mae Toe Clinic which welcomes every human being indiscriminately.
A piece of paper that the clinic provides to the patient is called a birth record which includes a signature of a nurse or mid-wife from the clinic with records such as birth time and date, weight of an infant and name of the mother. The data of those child births were kept on old and low quality papers of the clinic which often has to negotiate with Thai authorities to get a tiny space on the land of Thai people.
On the crowded market streets of Mae Sot, many children in dirty outfits are meandering. Those country-less children were born in Thailand. They are not only neglected by their illegal migrant parents from Burma but also both of the Burmese and Thai governments. No one except child traffickers cares their existence. Often, those children are gazing around the snack bars. Sometimes, they are staring at other children who are in Thai school uniforms and waiting for their school bus coming.
Those pictures generated an idea to a group of people who founded the Committee for Protection and Promotion of Child Right (Burma) called CPPCR. Currently, the committee is providing a birth certificate and child certificate with the approval of Dr. Cynthia Maung who is a head of the Mae Tao Clinic and chair of the committee.
Although the Mae Sot Burmese migrants these days receive the CPPCR approval birth-certificates and can send their children to schools in Mae Sot, the CPPCR is still facing many barriers and ways to overcome their issued birth-certificates to be recognized as legal and be fully used locally and internationally. In this situation, the CPPCR certificates are, meantime, helping to protect chidren from those unscrupulous child traffickers and child sex exploiters in the border town.
One day, I believe that our innocent children will have a chance to become a full citizen of a peaceful country and be able to travel as far as they can using their birth certificates.
