Birth Certificate - Haiti Observer Blog

How important is a piece of paper? When one asks the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who are without the most basic form of identification, the response is more than likely that it is very important. Therefore, it is with great enthusiasm that the public has met President Michel Martelly's initiative to bestow on hundreds of thousands of unregistered Haitians the right of their birth certificates and National Identification Cards.

The drive started recently in Belle Anse's second communal section, Mare Briole. Called Anrejistreman La Pou La, the Martelly Government intends to bestow the papers on some 10,000 people in the area, most of whom are said to be over twenty years of age.

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Today, there are thousands of Haitians that have settled and built their homes, families, and businesses in other countries. For the past years, it has always been troublesome for these Haitians abroad in attaining many of their personal documents from Haiti since the country lacked properly-organized archives of its citizens' government-issued documents.

To address this long-standing issue, the Haitian government officially established the National Archives of Haiti last May in order to improve the process and service of delivery and extraction of archived documents to Haitians living abroad. This proclamation was done in the presence of President Michel Martelly, the Minister of Haitians Living Abroad Daniel Torment, the Minister of Culture Jean-Gardy Ady, and a few CEOs and owners of businesses in Haiti including Ministère des Haïtiens Vivant à l'Etranger or MHAVE's Joseph Augustin Leprince and its several employees.

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