During the full-scale war, the birth certificate became for many Ukrainian children the main document certifying their identity. This especially applies to minors who do not yet have a foreign passport. In the conditions of evacuation, temporary relocation, search for safe haven abroad, this document allows you to cross the border. But more and more often there are cases when the child is not allowed through the checkpoint because his certificate is laminated.
This fact in itself does not look threatening. But when it comes to children who leave dangerous regions together with their mother or other relatives, the loss of the opportunity to leave is not a formality, but a real obstacle. The current legislation contains an internal contradiction: on the one hand, in the conditions of martial law, departure is allowed on the basis of a birth certificate, on the other hand, technical lamination is considered a violation of the requirements for the document. Thousands of families find themselves in this trap, and the problem is becoming systemic.
A normative document that does not see war
According to peacetime standards, a child has the right to leave Ukraine only with a biometric international passport. But the war changed the rules. From 2022, there is a simplified procedure that allows children to cross the border without a passport, only if they have a birth certificate, a paper document that in most cases was issued before the full-scale invasion.
However, a paradox arises in practice. A document that the state deems sufficient for the identification of a child may not be accepted by border guards only because of lamination — that is, because of the presence of a plastic coating designed to protect the document from damage. As a result, parents and children may be removed from a bus or plane, forced to spend the night at a train station, or return to a community that is no longer safe.
The State Border Service operates in accordance with Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 57, which provides for the submission of documents in an unchanged form. From a formal point of view, lamination is considered as a change in the design of the document, which supposedly makes it impossible to verify its authenticity.
Border guards may have doubts about the authenticity of the certificate, because lamination can hide security elements, stamps or signatures. In such cases, the employee has the right to suspend the border crossing, check the document in more detail, and sometimes – to completely refuse the pass. No explanation or logic works if the border guard does not have an inner conviction of the authenticity of the document. And the child is left with nothing.
Position of the Ministry of Justice
The position of the Ministry of Justice has evolved. If as early as 2023 the Ministry of Justice officially declared that laminated certificates were indeed suspicious, then in 2025 they changed their approach. The Department recognizes such documents as valid, arguing that the lamination service was previously officially provided by the employees of the RATS themselves. Today, it is available in TsNAPs — that is, within the limits of the legal mechanism.
However, this position is not synchronized with the practice of border guards. In one ministry they recognize the certificate, in another they doubt its validity. This creates legal uncertainty in which each specific case turns into a lottery. And the child always loses in it.
Digital inaccessibility
Another paradox is the electronic birth certificate, which is available in the Action application. This digital solution, which has the potential to solve the paper problem, currently has no legal force for border crossing. Legislation does not keep up with technology. And although the digital version is recognized within Ukraine, it is just a picture outside of Ukraine.
Thus, even parents who prepare in advance and have digital proof of their child’s identity are still forced to hold on to a paper ID — sometimes the only thing left after an evacuation.
For children who have become victims of war, the loss or inadmissibility of the document is a threat to life, health, access to medicine, education, security. Many of them were evacuated from the occupied territories, from the zone of active hostilities. In some cases, a birth certificate is the only document left after shelling a house or fleeing a burning village.
Blocked exit due to formalities is an additional pressure on children who have already experienced trauma. This is a forced return to danger. And this is a systemic problem that cannot be solved by any “exceptional” intervention.
What should parents do?
If the child’s certificate is laminated, parents are faced with the need for emergency decisions. The easiest option is to order a duplicate. It can be obtained from the DRATS department or through TsNAP, usually within a few days. But in wartime, queues, closed offices or lack of access to the registry can make this path difficult.
Another option is a notarized copy. This is an auxiliary tool that does not guarantee a successful crossing, but sometimes reduces the risk of failure.
Finally, some parents resort to independent lamination of the document. This is a risky process that can permanently damage the document. In specialized services, the service costs about 300 hryvnias, but it requires time and the availability of the original, which is sometimes no longer available.
How the state should act
Obviously, the responsibility should not lie solely on the parents’ shoulders. The state should either officially allow the use of laminated documents on the basis of an explanation from the Cabinet of Ministers, or promptly make a decision on the full recognition of digital certificates from Diya for the departure of a child.
It is also important to harmonize the positions of the State Security Service and the Ministry of Justice, to create a single instruction that leaves no room for arbitrary interpretation. After all, in disputed situations, the child is not the object of inspection, but the subject of the right to security.
It would seem that the question is formal, but behind the laminated piece of paper are the fates of children fleeing war. And until the state does not eliminate the legal contradiction between regulations, instructions and reality, it is the children who will remain hostages of the bureaucracy. In the era of digitization, evacuations and mass migration, the document should not be shackles, but should be the key to salvation.
