Civil registration


Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different subnational jurisdictions. It can be called a civil registry, civil register, vital records, and other terms, and the office responsible for receiving the registrations can be called a bureau of vital statistics, registry of vital records and statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create a legal document that can be used to establish and protect the rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics.
The United Nations General Assembly in 1979 adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Article 16 of which requires countries to establish compulsory civil registration of marriages. Most countries have a legal requirement for relevant authority to be notified of certain life events, such as births, marriages and deaths. The first country to establish a nationwide population register was France in 1539, using the registers of the Catholic Church. Sweden followed in 1631, on the basis of a register drawn up by the Church of Sweden on behalf of the Swedish king.
The United Nations defines civil registration as "the continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events pertaining to the population as provided through decree or regulation in accordance with the legal requirements of a country. Civil registration is carried out primarily for the purpose of establishing the legal documents required by law. These records are also a main source of vital statistics. Complete coverage, accuracy and timelines of civil registration are essential to ensure the quality of vital statistics."
Vital events that are typically recorded on the register include live birth, death, foetal death, name, change of name, marriage, divorce, annulment of marriage, judicial separation of marriage, adoption, legitimization and recognition. Among the legal documents that are derived from civil registration are birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage certificates. A family register is a type of civil register which is more concerned with events within the family unit and is common in Continental European and Asian countries, such as Germany, France, Spain, China, Japan, and North and South Korea.
Additionally, in some countries, immigration, emigration, and any change of residence may require notification. A register of residents is a type of civil register primarily concerned with the current residence.

Challenges

Civil registration is faced with many challenges, both on the demand side and supply side, especially in low-income countries. The demand-side challenges include a lack of awareness of the need for and importance of registration of vital events, and the situation is not helped by the many existing barriers to registration. For example, in 2009, the World Health Statistics Quarterly of the World Health Organization estimated that only about 1% of the estimated deaths in low-income groups are reported and just about 9% in lower-middle-income groups.
The registration systems in many cases are very difficult, causing potential barriers to accessing the registration. Furthermore, in certain societies, due to stigmatisation based on cultural and religious settings, single mothers may fear questions of paternity during notification through chief or community agents.
On the supply side, challenges often involve different, and often conflicting, legal frameworks various stakeholders, and as a result, many countries with "burdensome procedures and non-standardized systems across a country, leading to confusion regarding what individuals need to do or present." Other challenges include accessibility of remote areas and also irregular migration caused by civil conflicts and porous borders.

Innovations

There have been new developments in civil registration across the globe over the years. With the advent of enhanced and information and communication technology, civil registration has been moving from a paper-intensive, manual-based civil registration to more automated and digitalised systems. Some of the innovations implemented in civil registration include the use of e-birth notification systems, whereby the health officials are able to notify the national population registration system with new births. This system improves registration process by timely feeding the system with information as soon as a birth occurs. Another innovation, such as that implemented by iCivil Africa in Burkina Faso, is the use of a mobile application to register newborns.

Family register

A family register is a civil registry used in many countries to track information of a genealogical or family-centric legal interest. Other terms are household register and family album. The system is called hojeok in South Korea and koseki in Japan, Familienbuch in Germany, hukou in China, hộ khẩu in Vietnam. And, Bianhu in China and propiska in the Soviet Union.
Often, official recognition of certain events or status may be granted only when such event or status is registered in the family registry—for example, in Japan, a marriage is legally effective when and only when such filing is recorded into the household register. In other cases, the family register serves as a centralized repository for family legal events, such as births, deaths, marriages, and expatriations, as with the Familienbuch in use in Germany and the in France, although it is not the sole source of official recognition for such events.
Use of government-sanctioned or administered family registers, while common in many European nations and in countries which use continental-style civil law, is nonetheless rare in English-speaking countries.
Although the United States for example assigns most citizens and residents a Social Security number intended to be unique to the recipient and information regarding birth, death and work history is collected, the U.S. Social Security Administration has long been intentionally restricted in the scope of information collected and maintained regarding individuals where not directly related to Social Security benefits—as such, no information is centrally collected regarding marriage, citizenship status, parentage, or the like, in contrast to the German and Japanese family register systems.
Establishment of a more comprehensive personal information repository has been criticized by civil liberties advocates as subject to governmental or criminal abuse, while proponents cite the benefits of simplified access to vital information.
In South Korea, use of the hojeok was repealed in 2005, in favor of a personal registry system.
The systems of household registers in China, Korea and Japan date back to the Tang dynasty or Heian period or earlier, both since the seventh century.

List of household register systems

East Asia

  • The Hukou system, also known as Huji system, in China.
  • The Koseki system in Japan.
  • The former Hoju system in North Korea. Hoju means the 'head of the family', Hojuje is the 'head of the family' system, and Hojeok is the 'family register'.
  • The former Hoju system in South Korea attracted controversy for being innately patriarchal and hence representing a 'violation of the right to gender equality'. It was abolished on 1 January 2008 and replaced with the Family Relations Register system.
  • The Household registration system in Taiwan.

    South East Asia

  • Vietnam: The hộ khẩu, based on the Chinese hukou
  • Thailand: The Tabien Baan, or document proving House Registration, is distributed by a village, city, or other municipal authority. The Tabien Baan reflects the residents who live at a specific property. The Tabien Baan is issued to Thai Citizens and is used as a permanent address for service of process and other official mailings. A Tabien Baan is an extremely important document for Thai nationals because it acts as proof of a Thai person's residence. Therefore, it is used to determine a Thai person's voting district and in the case of Thai men of military age, the Tabien Baan is used to ascertain what district the Thai man will be placed in when drawing for the military draft. This can be critical because if one district reaches a certain level of volunteers then it is not necessary to further draft any inhabitants of that district. As a result, a Thai man's House Registration can have a massive impact upon their life and career depending upon the district in which they live.
  • Indonesia: Kartu Keluarga is a document in Indonesia that proves residency and which records relationships and family members. Every family in Indonesia is required to own one of these documents. Despite its name, the document is technically a document paper and large in size. This document records the identity of the family's head and the individual members. The document is kept by the family's head, ketua RT and desa or kelurahan office. The document is a provincial government document, thus, it is not permitted to strike out, change, replace or make additions in the document. Every data change has to be reported to the village or kelurahan office which will replace the old one with the updated one. Newcomers are not recorded in the document until they have been reported or have been deemed not to have local residency status. Changes in data have to be reported within 14 working days by the family's head to desa or kelurahan office. Each report of changes must be submitted with the copy that is held by the family's head and ketua RT. Changes in data include: birth, death or migration. However, if a family moves to different desa or kelurahan, the document must be revoked by desa or kelurahan office, which must be submitted with the copy that held by family's head and ketua RT. The official in the prior location will produce Surat Keterangan Pindah which will be used to make the new Kartu Keluarga in the arrival by desa or kelurahan office.