Thursday, June 16, 2016

Millions of children in Africa could be missing out on their rights to health care and education because they are not being registered at birth.

Marking the Day of the African Child in Durban, South Africa, on Monday, Unicef said 70% of newborn children in the continent are not registered.

The children's organisations says that the campaign for birth registrations is the central theme of this year's Day of the African Child.

According to the children's organisation, without a birth certificate a child is a "non-person", unable to prove their age, nationality or who their parents are.

Rural dilemma

The problem is greatest in rural areas.

It is estimated that only one in every 30 children has a birth certificate in rural Tanzania.

At the other end of the spectrum, 95% of children in the towns and cities of Cameroon are registered.

Unicef, says that less than 5% of children born in Ethiopia, for example, get a birth certificate.

There are numerous reasons why parents fail to register their children.

Some live a long distance from the nearest registry office and some cannot afford the registration fee.

According to an organisation that works with children to alleviate poverty (Plan International), many live in poor housing conditions and do not have anywhere safe to keep important documents.

Some prefer to delay registration until they feel confident that all their children have reached an age when their chances of surviving to adulthood are good.

Government resources are another problem, says Plan International.

Often civil registry offices are few and far between, or lack basic facilities such as typewriters, filing cabinets or trained staff.

Plan International says that unregistered children have little protection against the worst kinds of abuse and exploitation.

Child soldier

Children are vulnerable to serious crimes, such as recruiting child soldiers to fight in Uganda or Sierra Leone.

In northern Uganda, a war has wrecked the lives of thousands of children who are abducted by a rebel group known as the Lords Resistance Army, LRA.

The BBC's correspondent in Uganda says that after abduction boys are turned into ruthless fighters while the girls are often kept as concubines for the senior rebel officers.

Some children currently fighting for the LRA were born in captivity since the war started 17 years ago and have never known civilian life.

The United Nations children's fund (Unicef), estimates that over 5,000 children have been abducted by the LRA over the last year in northern Uganda.

Violation

In times of war or disaster, unregistered people are even more exposed because they lack the identity papers that would enable them to qualify for food aid or refugee status.

Plan International and Unicef say that they are committed to working together with governments, local groups and international organisations on birth registration in Africa, to give African children their right to an identity.