Altaf Hamid Rao.
UNICEF Proportion of registered births increased almost 20 per cent over past decade, yet 166 million children under-five have never been officially recorded
MIRPUR, (Parliament Times): Dec. 11: The number of children whose births are officially registered has increased significantly worldwide, yet 166 million children under-five, or 1 in 4, remain unregistered, UNICEF sources said..
Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030: Are we on track? – which analyses data from 174 countries – shows that the proportion of children under-five registered globally is up around 20 per cent from 10 years ago – increasing from 63 per cent to 75 per cent, the sources told this Correspondent on Wednesday. “We have come a long way but too many children are still slipping through the cracks, uncounted and unaccounted for,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “A child not registered at birth is invisible – nonexistent in the eyes of the government or the law. Without proof of identity, children are often excluded from education, health care and other vital services, and are more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.” Global progress is driven largely by great strides in South Asia. Pakistan, with 42 per cent registration of children under five years of age, is striving to achieve universal birth registration by 2024. UNICEF is providing technical support to the Government through the Ministry of Planning Development and Reform (MOPD&R) at the federal level and Local Government, Social Welfare and Planning and Development Departments in all four provinces and territories. The objective is to strengthen the realization of the right of the child to birth registration. In 2019, Local Government Departments, with assistance from UNICEF, have registered over one million children in selected districts of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Baluchistan.
The report notes that nearly 1 in 3 countries – accounting for around a third of the global population of children under the age of five – will need to urgently speed up progress in order to meet the target of providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, as set out in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Barriers to registration globally include lack of knowledge on how to register a child’s birth, unaffordable fees for registering a birth or obtaining a birth certificate, fees for late registration and long distances to the nearest registration facility. Traditional customs and practices in some communities – such as new mothers staying indoors – may also deter or prevent formal birth registration in the permitted time frame. Even when children are registered, possession of a birth certificate is less common, with 237 million children under-five globally – or slightly more than 1 in 3 – lacking this official proof of registration.
In Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030, UNICEF calls for five actions to protect all children:
Provide every child with a certificate upon birth.
Empower all parents, regardless of gender, to register their children at birth. Link birth registration to other systems to facilitate every child’s right to services including health, social protection and education.
Invest in safe and innovative technological solutions to facilitate birth registration.
Engage communities to demand birth registration for every child. “Every child has a right to a name, a nationality and a legal identity, so any improvement in increased registration levels is welcome news,” said Fore. “But as we have just marked the 30th anniversary of these rights – as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child – we must not stop until every child is counted
