A/HRC/33/22 most vulnerable and marginalized children who are not being registered, including children with disabilities, children from an indigenous minority groups, and children from families who have been displaced, are stateless or have refugee status. For example, a lack of registration persists among children from the Roma community in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, indigenous children in the Latin American and Caribbean region, and stateless children across regions, such as in Europe and in Africa.11 13. There is a dearth of reliable information on global implementation of civil registration aside from birth registration. Nonetheless, on the basis of the available global data in this regard, the United Nations Statistics Division notes substantial overall deficiencies in civil registration systems.12 One recent assessment based on composite data found that from 2005 to 2009 only 36.2 per cent of total estimated global deaths were registered, and that since 2000 there has been an improvement of approximately only 2 per cent in global rates of death registration. 13 While most countries do gather civil registration information and generate vital statistics, the degree, quality and regularity of this varies greatly. In less developed countries, civil registration systems tend to be weak and comprised of incomplete and unreliable information. Moreover, refugee, stateless and permanently displaced children are rarely captured in surveys or in national population censuses. III. A human rights approach to monitoring and implementation of obligations A. Challenges to implementation 14. All children should be registered immediately after birth, or as soon as possible after birth. The fulfilment of the right to birth registration is closely linked to the realization of other rights, including the rights of the child. A birth certificate has further implications throughout the course of life, and may be necessary to obtain a passport and other legal documents, to enrol in education, to marry, to secure inheritance and property rights or to secure formal employment. In some countries, it may be needed to obtain a driver’s licence, to open a bank account, to access social security or to obtain insurance or financial credit. Birth registration is also the primary basis for establishing nationality and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, including the right to vote and to participate in political life. Moreover, non-registration places children at heightened risk of becoming victims of trafficking, or of entering into marriage, the labour market, or the armed forces before the legal age, and unequal access to birth registration exacerbates existing inequalities, discrimination and vulnerability. Yet, the uneven progress towards implementation outlined above reflects the persistence of barriers to the realization of universal birth registration, and the fact that substantial gaps in registration rates within and between countries primarily represent those most marginalized and in situations of vulnerability, who remain invisible from vital statistics. 15. It is important to take account of the barriers contributing to this situation from a human rights perspective. Many countries face difficulties in ensuring access to civil 11 12 13 6 UNICEF, Annual Results Report 2015. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/CRVS/CR_coverage.htm. Lene Mikkelsen and others, “A global assessment of civil registration and vital statistics systems: monitoring data quality and progress” in The Lancet, vol. 386, No. 10001 (3 October 2015), pp. 1395-1406.