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By considering the legal basis of identity, students are encouraged to think about the rights that identity affords them, and the way such rights can be denied to people who are not registered at birth. Case studies look at the use of symbols for identification purposes.
Background:
Around the world millions of children continue to be denied their basic right to a legal identity. Without this, their access to education and health care is severely jeopardised and child rights abuses such as child-trafficking are much harder to prevent.
For the past two years Plan has been running a campaign for universal birth registration to encourage governments and parents to work to address this issue. In 2006 Plan UK also ran a web linking project on this subject bringing together students from across the UK and Africa to discuss the importance identity, rights and responsibilities. The depth of response from those students made the message clear – identity is a truly global concept.
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