Identity documentation as development: how do migrants and their children figure?

Identity documentation (ID) is now recognised as a development concern, especially since the adoption of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 16.9 on legal identity for all, including birth registration. However, achieving universal birth registration is not a straightforward task in contexts of human mobility. Where questions of belonging are unsettled, documentation may be issued to some and denied to others on discriminatory grounds. This chapter identifies four obstacles to birth registration for migrant women’s children which directly prevent the realisation of SDG 16.9: gender gaps in women’s independent access to ID; migration enforcement in the process of birth registration; access to reproductive healthcare; and linkage of birth registration with social welfare entitlements. If access to documentation for migrants and birth certificates for their children is not addressed, this directly hinders not only the achievement of legal identity for all, but also states’ capacity to measure achievement of all the SDGs.