17 million Nigerian children have no birth record – UNICEF

Despite significant increase in birth registration, about 17 million Nigerian children under the age of 5, or 1 in 5, have no birth record, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has said.
According to a new report on global birth registration released by UN body, even though the number of children whose births are officially registered has increased significantly in Nigeria from 30 percent in 2013 to 43 percent in 2018 by integrating birth registration into health services, over 17 million children were still not registered.
The report revealed that “Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030”, 166 million children under-five, or 1 in 4, remain unregistered, globally.

Reacting to the development, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, said, “We have come a long way in our campaign to ensure that children are officially registered at birth, and significant success has been made.
“Integrating the campaign in health care services was one of the approaches that yielded significant result. However, there are still many children who are slipping through the cracks that need to be captured.
“These unaccounted children are ‘nonexistent’ in the eyes of the government or the law. Without proof of identity, children are often excluded from accessing education, health care and other vital services, and are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.”
He, called on government and community leaders to support the campaign and encourage parents in their localities to register their newborns so they can enjoy the benefits therein.
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“Barriers to high registration coverage in Nigeria include the operation of two parallel and competing systems for birth registration at federal and state levels.
“Also, insufficient birth registrars, lack of public awareness on the importance of birth registration for children, coupled with ingrained social beliefs that do not encourage the registration of children are some of the identified barriers,” he said.
Birth registration is the official recording of the occurrence and characteristics of a birth by the civil registrar within the civil registry, in accordance with the legal requirements of a country.
A birth certificate is a vital record, issued by the civil registrar, that documents the birth of a child. Because it is a certified extract from the birth registration record, it proves that registration has occurred making this document the first, and often only, proof of legal identity, particularly for children.