Indonesia’s Missing Millions: Erasing Discrimination in Birth Certification in Indonesia

Indonesia’s rate of birth registration is imprecisely measured but is low, especially among the poorer, rural, population. At the same time, the country has developed a system of population registration with wide, if not universal, coverage. In addition, under current regulations that link legal recognition of paternity to the existence of a legal marriage, many children can only receive a birth certificate with the name of the mother. Such a credential is widely seen as less than desirable, creating a situation where children are discriminated against on the basis of the marital status of their parents. The paper draws on the results of large-scale surveys that illustrate the difficulties that the “dual-track” registration system can create, especially for poor people.