In Nepal, a child’s legal identity is determined only by a birth registration certificate and/or Minor Identity Card issued by the local registrar or Chief District Officer respectively. An individual is entitled to an actual citizenship certificate only after reaching the age of sixteen years and even then, they need to fulfil certain conditions under the Citizenship Act to acquire the citizenship. Thus, until the age of 16, a child is entitled to enjoy its fundamental human rights and child rights based on their birth registration certificate and Minor Identity card.

The acquisition of birth registration in Nepal is followed by numerous procedural and administrative challenges. More specifically, a child born through a single mother has to go through a cumbersome process and administrative challenges. Additionally, many individuals and
communities in Nepal continue to take civil registration such as birth registration as optional and do not consider it significant to make an application until they are asked for it while exercising any rights or services.

To address the above-mentioned problems, the Citizenship Affected People’s Network (CAPN) in partnership with the Institute of Statelessness and Social Inclusion (ISI) and in collaboration with Nationality for All (NFA) under the project head “Securing Birth Certificate, Ensuring
Education”, implemented a school outreach programs for grades 7 and 8 students of 5 different schools in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts. The primary objective of the program was to raise awareness among students regarding the significance of these rights, elucidate their current status, and elucidate the application process.