Brazil: Requirement for hospitals in Sao Paulo in 1964 to register births with the government, location of such records, and whether a person without a birth record can prove birth in Brazil and establish Brazilian citizenship

The information that follows was provided by a representative at the Embassy of Brazil in Ottawa during a 17 September 1998 telephone interview.

Normally, hospitals keep their own records of births and issue a card or other document to the parent(s) for their records and for registration of the birth at government offices. Although prompt verification of procedures that were in place at hospitals in 1964 is not possible, it can be said that this has long been standard procedure. However, it must be noted that many persons throughout Brazil, including Sao Paulo, are born in their homes and not in hospitals.

There are numerous cases in Brazil, mostly in rural areas, where children's births are not registered promptly at a government registry. In many such cases, the parents may have obtained a baptismal certificate from the Catholic church, which is normally accepted for later registration; this is particularly frequent in remote areas where there are no government registration bureaus nearby. The Catholic church is considered a reliable record keeper, and thus its baptismal or other certificates are used by government registration offices for issuing identity documents.

In remote and rural areas there are often cases of persons who have not registered their birth and may have never been baptized (for example, in some native tribes of the jungle, or in areas where there is no functioning church parish). There is no single rule or procedure to be followed to determine a person's date and location of birth in such cases; authorities can address each case in various ways, which would likely include an attempt to gather the testimony of witnesses who can vouch for a person's age and place of birth. In some such cases, the situation can be complicated, and proper registration of a person's identity can be very difficult, as would be the issuing of an identity document.

The Brazilian National Program of Human Rights (Programa Nacional de Direitos Humanos, PNDH), a joint institution of the government and non-government organizations, currently has among its most pressing short-term goals the completion of a one-year nationwide campaign involving municipal and state governments to provide all Brazilians with basic citizen's documents, such as birth certificates (PNDH 1998).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Reference

Embassy of Brazil, Ottawa. 17 September 1998. Telephone interview with representative.

Programa Nacional de Direitos Humanos (PNDH), Brasilia. 1998. "Proteçao do direito a tratamento igualitário perante a lei." [Internet] [Accessed 16 Sept. 1998]

Additional Sources Consulted

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Reports. 1991-96.

Keesing's Record of World Events [Cambridge]. 1964-97.

Latinamerica Press [Lima]. 1989-98.

Latin American Regional Reports: Andean Group Report [London]. 1985-98.

Latin American Weekly Report [London]. 1985-98.

Electronic sources: IRB Databases, Global NewsBank, NEXIS, Internet, Refworld, WNC.

Note:  This list is not exhaustive. Country-specific books available in the Resource Centre are not included.