WUNRN
Please see 2 parts of this WUNRN
Release.
WUNRN
notes that in countries where child marriage is illegal, children born to
underage mothers/marriages may never be registered, or at least until the
mother becomes of legal age.
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Birth
Registration - Indigenous Women & Girls
From
World Vision International Project Overview in Bolivia:
This
important project will assist children, young people and women, from indigenous
communities. It has been difficult for these groups to obtain birth
certificates, partly because they live in remote locations without public
transport. This project will work with the government to make birth
certificates a priority, including setting up mobile registration units to go
to remote villages. Without a birth certificate, children are not able to
access basic services, like going to school or to the doctor, and will not be
able to work legally in their own country. As full citizens in their country,
these children and young people will have the opportunity to be a voice to call
for change for their communities.
WUNRN notes that in the current 40th
Session of the UN CEDAW Committee, Bolivia is one of the countries under
review. The significance of Birth Registration has been part of the review
discourse, and the particular importance for many undocumented rural,
indigenous women and girls in Bolivia.
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Birth registration denied to 1 in 6 children in
Latin America Region
ASUNCION
/ PARAGUAY, 28 August 2007 – Governments, the UN and civil society
organizations from across the Latin American region are meeting to address
the alarming problem of children whose legal identity is not recognized due to
the lack of birth registration.
Throughout the region, one in six children do not legally exist because they were not registered at birth and have no formal or official identity. That means a staggering two million of the 11 million births in Latin America are not registered. Without a birth certificate millions of children are excluded from basic services such as health and education and face daily exploitation and risk.
“Marcos Alexandro, is ten years old, lives in the State of Chiapas in Mexico, and was accepted into school at ten years of age after registering in the registry. In Paraguay, it is estimated that only 35 percent of boys and girls are registered during the first year of their life, for the remainder they simply don’t exist as citizens,” says Nils Kastberg, Director of the Regional Office of UNICEF for Latin America and the Caribbean. "When we do not register our boys and girls, we deny them the basics like going to school, to hospital, getting a passport or being part of a family, and we are not protecting them against serious crimes such as child trafficking."
The meeting marks the first time the issue has been addressed region-wide, and is being held under the slogan “Write me down, make me visible.” The three day event is designed to achieve consensus and form the basis of regional and national plans that will guarantee free, universal and timely birth registration for all children by 2015. The event also looks to sensitize public opinion to the importance of birth registration as a means of access to children’s rights. While a birth certificate alone is not a guarantee, registration helps identify and legally protect marginalized and vulnerable children.
The 1st Latin American Regional Conference on Birth Registration and the Right to Identity has been organized in conjunction with the Government of Paraguay, by three of the Region’s main international agencies, UNICEF, Organization of American States, and the leading children’s non-governmental organization, Plan International. Delegates from the 18 countries represented include, high level political and government authorities, technical experts responsible for the civil resisters, and civil society organizations.
“We are extremely pleased that the region’s governments have shown true commitment to the issue by attending this event – it has taken a long time to organize, but this enthusiastic response makes it worthwhile. This is a vitally important issue and it’s a great first step to guaranteeing the rights of every child in Latin America,” said Pia Stavas-Meier, Plan’s Regional Director for the Americas. “Every day millions of children are denied access to the basic rights and opportunities many of us take for granted. It is only with all of us working together that those rights and opportunities will be recognised.”
Birth registration is not only essential for the safety and development of the children; it is also essential for the development of the countries. Children who have full and legal access to health and education services grow up into fully participating citizens. At the national level, registration provides governments with specific information on their populations and lets them make better use of increasingly limited resources – ensuring State funds go further and to where they are most needed.
Since 2005, these three organizations have been uniting in efforts and coordinating different actions to support governments and civil society to ensure that “Register me, make me visible" becomes a global reality, and " to ensure the right to an identity as a fundamental element for citizenship,” stresses Marie Claire Acosta, Program Director of Universalisation of the Civil Identity in the Americas of the O.A.S. "Citizenship implies the exercising of rights and constitutes one of the pillars of democratic governability.”
A series of conclusions and recommendations are an expected outcome of the conference. The conference will be replicated for the Caribbean Region next year.
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Nearly
40 % of Global Births are Unregistered - World Health Organization
29
October, 2007
GENEVA,
Oct 29 (Reuters) - Nearly 40 percent of the 128 million babies born worldwide
every year are not officially registered, and two thirds of deaths also go
undocumented, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.
The
U.N. agency said incomplete birth and death registries in many developing
countries "means they cannot count how many people are born and how many
die, and they cannot record how long they live or what kills them".
"When
deaths go uncounted and causes of death are not documented, governments are
unable to design effective health policies, measure their impact or know
whether health budgets are being well-spent," it said in a statement.
Only
31 of the WHO's 193 member states are believed to have reliable cause-of-death
statistics.
The
Health Metrics Network -- which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and the British, U.S. and Danish governments -- is helping Cambodia,
Sierra Leone and Syria improve their civil registration systems.
Sally
Stansfield, executive secretary of that WHO-hosted network, said surveys and
surveillance projects had helped fill in the gaps in some countries though
serious problems remained.
"It's
a major challenge," she said.
Children
whose births are not registered are less likely to benefit from basic human
rights, social, political, civic and economic, the WHO said.
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Birth registration is the process by which a child's birth is recorded in the civil register by the applicable government authority.
It provides the first legal recognition of the child and is generally required for the child to obtain a birth certificate and consequently any other legal documents and rights.
Whilst, in some cases, this is issued to the child at the same time as registration, in others, a separate application must be made. It is important that the registered child receive a birth certificate, since it is this that provides permanent, official and visible evidence of a state's legal recognition of his or her existence as a member of society.
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