Ecuador

In Ecuador, foreign parents with precarious status face multiple obstacles to registering their children’s births. In 2024, Ecuador had the region’s third-highest number of people displaced by violence. Ecuador has received recommendations from the CRC (2010, 2017), and CMW (2007) regarding guaranteeing birth registration for the children of refugees. In 2010 the CRC expressed concern at reports that children born in Ecuador from parents who are immigrants or asylum-seekers were denied the right to birth registration. In 2007 the CMW noted there was a high number of children of migrant workers who are not registered at birth or afterwards either because their parents did not register them for fear of being deported or because their registration was refused on the ground of the irregular status of one or both parents. There have been documented cases of civil registrars refusing to register children because a foreign parent who was attempting to register their child did not hold a valid visa, even if the other parent was an Ecuadorian citizen.