For the first time, all 400 children living in the Daulatdia brothel village in Bangladesh have received birth certificates, ending decades of invisibility. Previously, children born to sex workers with unknown fathers were denied state recognition, barring them from education, passports, and voting rights.
The milestone was achieved after campaigners from the London-based Freedom Fund and local organisations discovered an overlooked clause in a 2018 law allowing birth registration without parental information. They disseminated this information and worked with civil society groups to identify and register children, while lobbying local authorities to apply the provision.
Khaleda Akhter, Bangladesh programme manager for the Freedom Fund, said the reform “gives them their fundamental rights, it makes them feel safer, it gives them hope.” She noted that lacking a birth certificate made children vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation, as it was harder to prove they were under 18.
Mothers have enthusiastically embraced the campaign, encouraging others to register their babies. Sabbir Hossain, co-author of a study on the Banishanta brothel, said parents previously had to send children to unregulated religious schools or ask men to pose as fathers to get them into education.
Akhter recalled visiting a 14-year-old girl from the fifth generation of a brothel family, who said: “My identity has been recognised by the government.” The girl, now able to receive a school stipend, expressed joy at finally having protection against the odds she faced.
