A year ago, Radwa Mostafa (28 years old) was still recovering from a caesarean section when her brother took her newborn daughter to the health office to receive her first vaccination and complete the birth certificate procedures. She did not imagine that a simple step like this would turn into a battle with bureaucracy and gender-based discrimination.
The mother received a call from her brother telling her that the employee had refused to register the baby girl and had insisted that only the father, who was working abroad, or the child’s paternal uncle or paternal grandfather come, even though the law does not require this. The next day, after gathering her strength, she went to the office herself accompanied by her brother, carrying an updated identity card on which her husband’s name was recorded, in addition to the official marriage certificate.
“I submitted all the authenticated identification documents, but the employee was obstinate with me and refused to register the baby. I kept trying for a whole week to no avail, and because my elderly father-in-law is ill and lives in Minya, and my husband’s only brother also lives outside Egypt, neither of them could register the baby,” she tells Zawia3, adding that her husband, under the weight of the administrative obstinacy, was forced to obtain emergency leave from his work and travel on the first flight bound for Cairo, 10 days after his daughter’s birth. He applied in person, and as soon as he appeared, the baby obtained her birth certificate within minutes.
This story reflects a structural flaw in dealing with women as second-class citizens or as legal minors, bearing in mind that international conventions and child laws guarantee the right to identity as a gateway to accessing all other rights. Yet administrative practice still treats the child and the mother as property belonging exclusively to the man and his family, which turns her into a mere intermediary who has no authority to grant identity to her child, nor her own standing as a citizen.
At that time, Radwa did not know that the Child Law gives her the right to register the newborn, and that what happened to her was nothing but administrative and gender-based obstinacy, by virtue of the patriarchal customs and traditions of Egyptian society. But she realised that the law alone is not enough when a government employee decides that his authority is stronger than a mother’s right.
Radwa, however, was not the only one to face that obstinacy and discrimination. Mariam Mohamed (35 years old) lived through it as well. She gave birth to her daughter in 2023, after a marriage that lasted only a few months and ended tragically. As soon as she told her husband that she was pregnant, he turned against her, for no reason other than that she was his second wife and the marriage had been kept secret from his first wife and children. She was shocked when he made her choose between an unsafe home abortion or divorce and the denial of the foetus’s paternity; Mariam chose the harder path: divorce, and recourse to the law to protect her right and her daughter’s right.
The father travelled and abandoned her completely, while she fought successive battles. She filed a “divorce for harm” lawsuit, a legal concept and recourse whose aim is to give redress to a wife who suffers material or moral harm that makes the continuation of her married life impossible. This path guarantees the wife’s rights: once she presents the court with clear evidence proving that the harm occurred, she is granted a divorce while retaining all her religious and financial rights. She awaited the birth of her daughter with both impatience and fear, and when the time came to register the newborn, she stood in the health office holding her official papers, her marriage certificate and her husband’s ID card, but was surprised by the employee telling her: “The father, the paternal uncle or the paternal grandfather must be present.”
She tells Zawia3: “The father refused to register the baby, until she became unregistered. On the lawyer’s advice, I filed a police report for refusal to register the newborn, but the health office staff refused to register her, even though I had with me all the required official papers, namely the marriage certificate and a copy of both parents’ ID cards.”
Mariam left the office feeling suspended between a law that is not enforced and a child without an identity. She did not know that she had the legal right to register the newborn without the father being present, as long as she had in hand the electronic marriage certificate, a copy of his national ID card and her own birth certificate, in addition to the birth notification.
Two full years have passed for her daughter, who still has no birth certificate, no official name, no national ID number in the future, and none of her basic rights. She adds: “I need to obtain a birth certificate for my daughter so that I can file a maintenance lawsuit for her against her father. Now I have been forced to file a proof of paternity lawsuit, despite there being an official marriage.”
Article 15 of Egyptian Child Law No. 126 of 2008 specifies the persons legally charged with reporting the birth, namely: the child’s father if present; the child’s mother, provided that the marital relationship is proven; the directors of hospitals, penal institutions, quarantine facilities and others; and the village mayor or sheikh in the case of a proven marriage. According to what the executive regulations specify, the father is the one who reports the birth if he is present; the mother is required to submit proof of the marriage; directors of institutions, such as hospitals, penal institutions and quarantine facilities, where the birth takes place; and the village mayor or village sheikh if the marriage has been proven: these may carry out the reporting.
The law stipulates that a newborn must be registered within 15 days of the date of birth, as part of the child’s right to official documentation and to guarantee access to health, education and other services. The basic right to register the newborn is granted to the father, but if the father dies before the birth, or is absent, the mother has the right to register the newborn, provided she submits proof of the situation (such as death or travel).
The testimonies of Radwa and Mariam are consistent with what Noha Omar (a pseudonym), who works as a general practitioner in one of the health administrations in Cairo Governorate, explains to Zawia3: that the instructions staff received during their training on birth registration procedures required the father’s presence to complete the registration process, and in his absence, the paternal uncle, paternal aunt, paternal grandfather or paternal grandmother may attend.
The health administration employee adds that the mother can also register the newborn, provided she writes a declaration explaining the reason for the father’s absence, noting that some employees may exaggerate in applying these instructions or enforce them strictly without legal basis, as a result of the influence of social practices based on male guardianship, which sometimes obstructs mothers’ rights to register their newborns normally.
According to the law, the process of registering newborns begins with going to the health office affiliated with the place of birth within 15 days of the date of birth and handing over the required documents, including the birth notification, the father’s and mother’s national ID cards, and the marriage certificate. The health staff then record the child’s data and send it electronically to the Civil Status Department to issue the computerised certificate, which can be collected from the civil registry office after about a week.
In cases of divorce or the father’s death, the guardian submits the document proving this situation, and when going to the relevant health office, the guardian (or whoever acts on their behalf) must apply within the specified deadline and submit all the required original documents.
The newborn is entitled to receive the mandatory vaccinations at the health office if they do not have a birth certificate, as Article 25 of the Child Law stipulates that the child must be vaccinated and immunised with preventive vaccines against infectious diseases, free of charge, at health offices and health units, in accordance with the systems and schedules set out in the executive regulations. The duty to present children for vaccination or immunisation falls on the father or the person in whose custody the child is.
Incomplete Citizenship for Women
In the same context, Nada Nashaat, director of the Women’s Public Participation Programme at the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, affirms that the problem of some health offices discriminating against mothers in the matter of birth registration usually stems from verbal directives that spread among employees and contradict the laws in force, pointing out that employees sometimes cling to unwritten instructions that impose the requirement that the father or one of his male family members be present to register the child.
She tells Zawia3: “The matter is linked to a prevailing culture within institutions that does not recognise women’s rights as citizens with full legal capacity, even though the administrative judiciary had explicitly affirmed the mother’s right to register the newborn without requiring the father’s presence, provided that the marital relationship is proven.”
Nada points out that some health offices apply differing standards: some refuse to register the child without the presence of the father or one of his male relatives, while others accept the presence of the paternal grandmother or any woman from the father’s family. This obstinacy stems from a stereotypical view that considers the woman a dependant rather than a holder of full legal authority, so the government procedures concerning her are obstructed on the pretexts of guardianship or male authority, or of verifying the validity of the marriage.
She adds: “This pattern of gender-based discrimination is rooted in society as a result of long decades of policies and practices that weaken women’s legal and social status, and employees sometimes resort to selective religious justifications to restrict women’s rights, even though these are not based on any legal text or binding jurisprudential reference.”
The programme director considers that the roots of the problem lie in the lack of full recognition of women’s legal citizenship, and in the persistence of an institutional culture that holds that the mother does not possess the same decision-making authority as the father, which leads to the obstruction of the implementation of clear laws that guarantee her the right to register her newborn without complication or guardianship.
The obstinacy that some mothers face in health offices when registering newborns is not merely a matter of individual violations, but reflects a deep-rooted pattern of sex-based administrative discrimination, according to the researcher on gender issues Mai Saleh. Although the law grants the mother the right to register her child, practice within many government institutions subjects this right to a patriarchal view that makes the presence of the father or one of his paternal kin an unstated condition, which pushes many women into complex legal procedures to obtain an inherent right.
She tells Zawia3: “What happens during birth registration is not in isolation from the forms of discrimination that mothers face under the pretext of guardianship or tutelage, and these practices turn discrimination from individual acts into institutional discrimination that government bodies treat as a fait accompli, amid social silence and a gradual normalisation of the violation.”
She affirms that women’s fear of harassment and stigma plays a major role in entrenching this reality, as mothers are subjected to offensive comments and insinuations related to morality or the father’s absence, which pushes many of them to avoid entering into a legal or administrative confrontation, noting that women’s lack of awareness of their rights makes it easier for employees to abuse their authority by making false claims about the law, exploiting the gaps in societal culture.
She continues: “Forms of discrimination also appear in the assumption that the father’s kinship is ‘the only one that counts’ before employees, while the mother’s relatives are ignored, even though the law allows them similar procedures, and in considering the father’s acknowledgement as the basis for proving filiation, which excludes the mother from a basic right,” pointing out that this is part of a broader system that places women in a lower social and legal position.
She affirms that the principle is that the mother obtains her right directly, not that she is forced to resort to the courts or the police to prove what the law clearly guarantees her.
This discrimination and obstinacy is practised against some mothers in health offices regardless of their social and economic levels, although women who are less aware of their rights and who do not have the financial resources to hire a lawyer suffer from it more. These practices are considered a form of structural violence or institutional violence based on gender, linked to the violence rooted in systems and laws that entrench inequality and expose women to physical and psychological harm. This discrimination amounts to blaming the victim, and a failure of protection caused by a lack of commitment and delayed procedures, and the solution lies in legislative texts and comprehensive community interventions.
The Biggest Problems of Birth Registration
Court rulings have not only upheld the right of officially married women to register their newborns, but have extended to include women in customary marriages; in September 2018, the Administrative Judiciary Court of the State Council in Egypt obliged the Civil Status Department of the Ministry of Interior to register newborns whose births had gone unregistered, and the children of customary marriages, in the birth registers, and to issue birth certificates for them.
For her part, Nevine Ebeid, executive director of the New Woman Foundation, believes that the customary marriage of girl children represents one of the biggest problems linked to birth registration in Egypt, as underage girls cannot legally register their marriages, which leads to serious complications when they have children. A girl in a customary marriage is forced to wait until she reaches the legal age to be able to register her marriage, which means that her children are born throughout this period without official papers. She points out that the child may die before being registered, or may be born and then a customary divorce takes place between the spouses without any legal document, or the husband disappears or is imprisoned for long years, and the mother cannot register the newborn for lack of anything proving the marital relationship.
She notes that some families resort to circumventing the law by registering the newborn in the name of the grandfather, the girl’s father, or one of the relatives, so that the child can obtain vaccinations, education and health services. But this option is not available to everyone, as some relatives refuse to register the child in their name, considering it a “mixing of lineages”, which makes the child of unknown parentage in the eyes of the law, due to the absence of any legal proof of the marital relationship.
She tells Zawia3: “Undocumented children are deprived of basic rights such as education, medical examinations and vaccinations, and their papers remain suspended until the mother is able to prove a marriage that was not documented from the start. The problem becomes even more complicated if the mother is divorced or widowed during her customary marriage, or if the husband is imprisoned, especially as cases involving the marriage of minors, which the law in some cases treats as human trafficking crimes, may carry a penalty of up to ten years in prison.”
The executive director points out that the handling of these cases differs from one prosecution office to another: in some cases the prosecution takes the initiative to document the customary marriage contract to protect the child, while in other cases the penalty is applied without addressing the family’s legal status. As for the obstinacy of some health offices in registering newborns, she says she does not know whether this obstinacy is due only to the absence of a marriage contract or to other internal considerations, but in all cases the absence of documentation is the fundamental point of failure, which opens a chain of legal and social problems for children and their mothers.
The Judiciary Upholds the Mother’s Right to Register Her Newborn
The law allows the mother, the father, the grandfather or the paternal uncle to register the newborn, provided that the mother holds a valid official marriage certificate proving the marital relationship during a period that legally allows the pregnancy to have occurred, according to lawyer Aya Hamdy, director of the support offices at the New Woman Foundation, who points out that this right is not always applied on the ground, as customs often prevail over the texts of the law, which leads to the obstinacy of some employees and their refusal to register newborns without the presence of the father.
Aya explains that mothers have two paths to confront this obstinacy, which can be pursued in parallel or separately: the first is to submit a formal notice and a police report against the refusing employee and file a misdemeanour case of “refusal to implement the law”, as a refusal to perform an act that is legally mandatory. The second path consists of filing a “proof of paternity” lawsuit, a procedure that mothers resort to even in cases of official marriage when the father refuses to come or the Civil Status Department refuses to register.
She tells Zawia3: “A police report filed against the father for refusing to register the newborn is usually attached as circumstantial evidence in the proof of paternity lawsuit, but in practice it does not entail direct penalties, because the law stipulates that the mother has the right to register, even though this right is not implemented in practice in many offices.”
She adds that if the child exceeds the legal registration period of 15 days and is considered “unregistered”, the mother has no option but to file a report at the police station and file a proof of paternity lawsuit, pointing out that ruling on these lawsuits may take on average about eight months, although the durations vary depending on the notification procedures, the investigations and the judge’s requests.
She explains that the proof of paternity lawsuit goes through several steps, including notifying the father and requesting investigations from the Ministry of Social Solidarity to ensure that the child is not under the alternative families system, and the judge may request witnesses, especially in cases of customary marriage. In an official marriage, the marriage certificate, the birth certificate and the birth notification are considered sufficient documents in most cases.
Regarding the procedures for registering a newborn born of a customary marriage, she explains that the mother must file a “proof of marriage and proof of paternity” lawsuit in a single statement of claim, and submit the customary marriage contract and the birth statements. The matter requires the attendance of witnesses who are aware of the marriage, and after the ruling is issued, the birth certificate is recorded normally and the child is granted all the rights guaranteed to children born within an official marriage.
Regarding cases in which the father dies before the birth, she says: “The court compares the duration of the marriage with the timing of the pregnancy, and may request witnesses or additional documents to prove paternity, and the matter becomes more complicated in a customary marriage, which requires an acknowledgement or the attendance of the father’s family.”
Aya Hamdy affirms that the core of the problem lies in the contradiction between the texts of the law that grant the mother the right to register, and the actual practices within some health offices, which remain subject to a culture that gives precedence to customs over legal rules and places the entire legal and social burden on women.
Birth registration is a fundamental right of every child born on Egyptian territory, as one of the civil rights stipulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Egyptian Child Law, and no child may be deprived of a birth certificate regardless of the circumstances of their birth, because proof of legal existence is a right that does not lapse and is not subject to personal judgements, as affirmed by lawyer Ahmed Moselhy, head of the Network for the Defence of Egypt’s Children.
He explains to Zawia3 that the Child Law places the primary responsibility for reporting the newborn on the father, and in his absence, one of his paternal relatives, such as the uncle or the brother, has the right to complete the registration procedures. He points out that the mother also has the right to report whenever she is able to prove the marital relationship by submitting the official marriage certificate or any documents confirming the existence of the marriage, as stipulated in the executive regulations of the law. If proving the marital relationship is not possible, the mother can submit a declaration of parentage, and in this case the child is registered under the mother’s name and the name of a hypothetical father until the marital relationship is decided before the court.
He explains that the birth certificate issued in this case is considered temporary until paternity is proven or denied, but it is adopted as a valid certificate unless a later amendment occurs, affirming that some employees’ refusal to register on the pretext that the father must be present is a routine practice that violates the law, and that the legal texts grant the mother the explicit right to register the child without requiring the presence of the father whenever she submits a document proving the marital relationship. He notes that in the case of a customary marriage, the mother can register the child with a temporary declaration, then file a lawsuit to prove the marital relationship in order to amend the birth certificate and add the name of the real father after the ruling is issued.
He says that “the problem of administrative obstinacy is not the result of a deficiency in legislation”, describing the Child Law as “one of the best laws in the world, as attested by the United Nations”, and that the current problems are due to cultural legacies and patriarchal ideas that hinder the application of the texts, pointing out that the Ministry of Interior and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood have trained employees to facilitate the registration of children, but some offices still cling to old practices.
While the law seeks to protect the best interests of the child and to prevent fathers who refuse to register their newborns despite an official marriage from escaping punishment, it penalises them with a fine if they do not register their children within the first 15 days after birth, and the penalty may reach imprisonment for up to six months if it is proven that the father, through his conduct, exposed the child to danger, a legal description that includes depriving the child of vaccinations, health insurance and proof of identity, all of them rights directly linked to the issuance of the birth certificate, as Moselhy explains.
He concludes his conversation with us by affirming that the mother is not obliged to accept administrative obstinacy in health offices, and that she has clear paths before her: submitting a complaint to the director of civil status in Abbasiya, notifying the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, or taking the necessary legal measures to obtain the birth certificate, saying: “The law is on the side of children, and the violations that occur represent nothing but a legacy that must end.”
If the employee refuses to register the newborn, the mother or her family must file a report at the police station to establish the refusal, then use the report statement to submit to the health office to register the child. Child helplines can be used to obtain assistance, and if the refusal continues, a grievance can be submitted to higher officials (the director of civil status, then the judge of summary matters at the court), bearing in mind that refusal exposes the employee to a financial penalty.
The Supreme Administrative Court had affirmed, in a final ruling it issued in April 2015, that obtaining a birth certificate for a newborn is not an exclusive right of the husband; rather, the mother also has the right to register her newborn, even in the event of marital disputes or the father’s refusal. The grounds of the ruling stated that depriving the mother of this right is a mere “insult” that the law does not accept, and that depriving the child of the registration of their birth constitutes a violation of their constitutional right to identity.
The facts of the case go back to a woman who left the marital home during her pregnancy and went to the civil registry to register her child after the birth, but the health office refused at the husband’s request, which prompted her to go to court. After her husband refused to appear before the court, the court ruled to suspend the implementation of the refusal decision and obliged the civil registry administration to record the birth and hand the mother her child’s birth certificate.
In February 2023, the Supreme Administrative Court issued a certificate of non-appeal against the previous ruling of the Administrative Judiciary Court, which affirms that a mother’s right to obtain a birth certificate for her newborn does not lapse because of marital disputes or the father’s refusal. The ruling included that the husband or his family may not deprive the wife of this right or insult her, even if the wife is absent from the marital home.
The court ruled to oblige the civil registry authority to record the child’s birth and issue their birth certificate, despite the refusal of the father or the health administration, considering that depriving the child of the registration of their birth represents a violation of their constitutional right to identity, and affirming that registration is not the exclusive preserve of the father alone, but is shared by both spouses. The ruling thus sided with the mother and her child, and became final and not subject to appeal.
Meanwhile, human rights lawyer Entessar El-Saeed, director of the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, affirms that administrative procedures within some government institutions still reflect a discriminatory view of women, especially mothers who are breadwinners, pointing out that obstinacy in registering newborns without the presence of the father has no legal basis, but rests on individual practices that lack awareness, and represents a clear violation of the child’s right to identity.
She tells Zawia3: “The obstruction of child registration procedures taking place in some civil registry offices is a double violation that affects the woman and her child at the same time, and reflects a discriminatory culture that dominates institutions that are supposed to provide their services without distinction.”
She explains that Egyptian law grants the mother the right to register her newborn, but practical application is still subject to patriarchal perceptions and the discretionary authority of some employees, which turns this right into daily suffering for mothers, especially survivors of violence or cases of abandonment, stressing that depriving a child of a birth certificate because of an employee’s personal position is a violation of the child’s basic rights, from identity to health care and education.
The human rights lawyer calls on the Ministry of Interior to issue clear and binding instructions to civil registry workers to respect the mother’s right as a natural guardian, and to hold accountable any employee who obstructs the issuance of a birth certificate without legal basis, along with the necessity of training employees on the principles of equality and non-discrimination, affirming that reforming laws is not achieved unless it is accompanied by a change in institutional behaviour and societal awareness, and noting that any obstinacy against mothers in obtaining official papers represents a flagrant violation of the Constitution and of the international conventions to which the state has committed itself.
The testimonies of mothers and experts, and the court rulings that have accumulated over recent years, reveal that the birth registration crisis in Egypt is not linked to a deficiency in legislation, but to a system of administrative practices and a patriarchal mindset that turn a clear legal right into a privilege subject to an employee’s mood or to a traditional institutional culture. While the law explicitly recognises the mother’s right to register her child, this right remains suspended in many health offices, where verbal directives and customs prevail over legal texts and the Constitution, so that the children, before their mothers, pay the heaviest price: deprivation of identity, health care, education and legal existence itself.
Finally, depriving women of the right to register their newborns does not only strip them of their right to motherhood; it represents a form of gender-based violence that individuals within state institutions reproduce. Linking the child’s legal identity to the man alone entrenches the idea that the ‘public sphere’ and the legal sphere are a male space par excellence, while women are confined to the ‘private sphere’ of care alone, a reality that completely contradicts the principles of justice and equality before the law.
Accordingly, the continuation of this obstinacy should not be viewed as a ‘social custom’ that can be overlooked, but as an explicit form of administrative corruption and abuse of power, which requires urgent intervention by oversight bodies to conduct a comprehensive audit of health offices, and to hold accountable the employees who set themselves up as moral judges instead of implementers of the law.
Between a progressive law and a frozen administrative reality, the future of thousands of children remains suspended, awaiting the moment when administrative practices become consistent with the judiciary that has settled the matter repeatedly, and when women become fully competent in fact, not only on paper.
In the end, the question that imposes itself remains: how many children must be born without an identity, and how many mothers must fight an unnecessary battle, before state institutions commit themselves to applying what is supposed to be a guaranteed right, not a battle to be fought?
This report was produced as part of a fellowship with Free Press Unlimited, under the editorial supervision of Ruba El-Helw.
