In Bangladesh, people need to prove their ages in all kinds of places – for getting government jobs, admitting children to schools, courtroom sessions, and so on.
Thanks to a section of grassroots level public representatives and public servants and virtually zero monitoring by the government, one can easily “customise” the official birth certificate according to their needs.
Recently, in Rajbari district, a 22-year-old accused in a case secured freedom by proving before a local court that he was not an adult.
According to the website of the Local Government Department, there are five authorities for awarding birth certificates – union parishads (UP), municipal corporations, city corporations, cantonment boards and the embassies.
These authorities award the birth certificates mainly on the basis of recommendations and approvals from local public representatives such as UP chairmen, ward councillors and so on.
In Jessore, the UP chairman of Sharsha union recently helped in a child marriage by issuing false certificates that proved that two minor boy and girl were adults.
Apart from these serious issues, parents and guardians often tend to “customise” the birth dates of school going children.
The education policy states that the minimum age for getting admission in a school is six and sitting in the SSC examination is 15.
According to the public service recruitment policy, the maximum age for application eligibility is 31 years. Even many private banks nowadays have their own minimum age for recruitment.
These have prompted many guardians and parents to want their ward to sit in exams at the minimum possible age, so that they can get more time to apply for jobs.
Some guardians get actual birth certificates with false dates by pursuing recommendation out of public representatives, some of whom do it for money and others to show that they have the power.
Sources at government offices said the trend spiked after the lottery system was introduced for admission in schools and a rule was made that the younger child would be chosen if there were two candidates against one available seat.
The same rule for choosing the younger candidate was introduced for admission in the colleges as well.
AKM Saiful Islam Chowdhury, project director of the Birth and Death Registration Project of the government, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had been facing a huge rush during February-May every year because that was the time for registration for the primary terminal examinations.
He also said sometimes parents and even school authorities applied for re-registration saying a child’s birth certificated needed to be changed on “humanitarian grounds.”
Earlier this week, the parents and teachers of at least one hundred fifth grade students of a primary school in Bhairab of Kishoreganj found out that the kids would not be able to sit for the primary terminal examination because all of them were nine years old on papers; for sitting in the exam, a child must be at least 11 years old.
Some of them have sought fresh birth certificates from the local issuing authority citing “humanitarian grounds.”
Saiful said he was annoyed that some opportunists had been misusing the birth registration system and violating law.
“After proper investigation, we will take strong steps to rectify the loopholes,” he said.
