Equal access to education and health for children without IDs
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, followed by other international documents, such as the Convention for the Defense of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1949 or the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, promulgated by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20, 1959 ensure everyone the inherent right to a name and a nationality, to social protection, to free and compulsory education, to medical services capable of ensuring healthy development, to protection against any form of violence, neglect or exploitation.
These fundamental rights are the basis of the legal facilities that derive from having an identity recognized before the law. Children are considered a vulnerable group that deserves special protection. However, children without ID face various legal and administrative barriers.
People without IDs – Romania
In Romania there are still thousands of people who reach the age of maturity without having a personal numeric code and no identity document.
In 2016, data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated that about 10,000 people never obtained a birth certificate. In the absence of a Personal Numeric Code and a birth certificate, these individuals do not exist before the law, so they cannot access their rights and respect their obligations given by law. Considering the fact that people without IDs are not registered in the National Registry of Persons (RNEP), there are no statistical data to point to specific instances or to identify the people in question.
The obligation to declare the birth of a child lies with the parents, within the 30 days established by law. If this obligation cannot be fulfilled by one of the parents, the task then lies with the doctor, the people who were present at birth, the social worker or the people with social assistance duties in the health unit where the birth occurred or to any other person who was aware of the birth of the child.
Subsequently, the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 33 of June 28, 2016, regarding the modification and completion of some normative acts regarding civil status documents and identity documents of Romanian citizens, approved by Law no. 14 of January 12, 2018, provided the legal framework through which several problems associated with late registration and the difficulty of obtaining identity documents were simplified.
Legislative Modifications – Education
The legislative initiative stipulates that the educational institutions to which children without IDs present themselves shall provide them with the compulsory general education services they are entitled to. Also, the employees of these institutions to which the registration is requested will immediately announce social assistance services or police authorities in order for them to carry out the necessary procedures for obtaining the ID and for registering the children in the civil status registry.
The lack of identity documents affects both these children and their entire community, through an increased risk of poverty and social exclusion, illiteracy, exposure to abuse and violence or human trafficking.
Legislative Modifications – Health
The purpose pursued by this initiative is non-discriminatory access to health services for children under 18 and for people in vulnerable situations, already provided by the legislation on health and patient rights.
Specifically, it is the exemption from co-payment for children under the age of 18, persons with disabilities, patients with diseases included in the national health programs established by the Ministry of Health, pregnant women, victims and victims of human trafficking, even if they are not registered in the civil status registry and do not have an ID.
The project also has long-term effects. It does not only solve the specific problem of access to healthcare. The initiative will allow the authorities to identify the persons without IDs and to quickly initiate the procedure for their registration in the civil status registry, when they present themselves in medical care units.
The procedure of institutional cooperation between the competent institutions (police, social assistance and medical units) will be established by protocol by the National House of Health Insurance, and the initiators have set a deadline for this: no later than 30.01.2019.
