Ecuador

Consolidation of postcolonial state control over territorial borders and borderlands through birth registration

In the border regions of Ecuador, many people have gone unregistered despite being entitled to Ecuadorian birth registration and nationality. In 2007 a civil society submission to the CMW indicated that in border regions there are many supposedly “foreign” nationals who remain undocumented, many of whom were born in Ecuador and are entitled to Ecuadorian nationality. There were also many Colombians who lived in border regions for decades and had their children in Ecuador. However, some returned to Colombia to register their children instead of registering in Ecuador because of distance or financial barriers to registration. In 2025 the CRC recommended that Ecuador adopt an action plan to achieve universal birth registration in rural, coastal and border areas.

Promising Practices

As of 2020, Ecuador and Colombia signed Inter-Institutional Cooperation Agreements to coordinate binational brigades and personal identification campaigns to identify Colombians residing in Ecuador and Ecuadorians residing in Colombia. Part of this coordinated effort was aimed at providing people with their identity documents free of charge. Ecuador has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNHCR that has brought civil registry services closer to the northern border areas.