PROTECTION WITHOUT PAPERS? ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN, POLICY DESIGN, AND INEQUALITY IN BIRTH REGISTRATION AMONG AFGHAN REFUGEE AND HOST-COMMUNITY CHILDREN IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Birth registration is fundamental to legal identity and can contribute to the extent to which children are able to access their rights, public services and institutional protection. However, registration is still not uniform for those whose legal status and relationship with the state is complex to manage. Pakistan is a significant case study as it has hosted Afghan refugees for over 40 years and has refugee-documentation systems in place, yet significant inequalities in birth registration exist. According to the UNHCR Forced Displacement Survey Pakistan 2024, 46 per cent of Afghan refugee children under the age of five were registered with a civil authority, while 81 per cent of children in neighboring host communities were registered, highlighting a gap of 35 per cent. This study focuses on the policy design and administrative processes, which may be contributing to this gap. It features a secondary mixed-methods design that draws on descriptive quantitative evidence from the Forced Displacement Survey and analysis of refugee-documentation procedures, civil-registration arrangements, legal-identity scholarship, and policy and institutional documents. Administrative-burden theory is used as the basis for distinguishing learning costs related to gaining knowledge of registration requirements from compliance costs related to documentation and procedural requirements and psychological costs related to navigating institutions in the context of uncertain or precarious legal status. The study does not see unequal registration merely as a matter of individual non-registration but as a problem of implementation that is located at the intersection of legal status, administrative design, household resources and institutional accessibility. It makes a contribution to the scholarship on public-administration and refugee-policy by illustrating the ways in which formal access to administrative procedures can lead to unequal effective access and by creating a matrix for assessing legal-identity systems based not only on administrative coverage but also on accessibility.