Invisible children remain grave world problem

It’s quite true we learn new things every day and we’ll keep doing so as long as we live.

So if you’re just hearing the term, invisible children, for the first time through this post on Oseyiza Oogbodo Blog, then you’ve obviously learnt a new thing.

So what and who are invisible children and are they truly invisible?

According to the latest UNICEF report on them, a quarter of the world’s children are invisible, meaning their births were not registered, so they don’t exist officially.

The report continued that though the number of children whose births are officially registered has increased significantly worldwide, yet 166 million children under 5 years, or 1 in 4, remain unregistered.

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 percent from 10 years ago – increasing from 63 to 75 percent.

“We’ve come a long way but too many children are still slipping through the cracks, uncounted and unaccounted for,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore disclosed. “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 accessing education, health care and other vital services, and are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.”

Global progress is driven largely by great strides in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, India and Nepal, but recent years have seen advances in West and Central Africa as well. Liberia, for example, increased the level of birth certification from 4 to 25 percent between 2007 and 2013.

To improve accessibility in Liberia, UNICEF supported integrated service delivery models of birth registration within health facilities and at county level through one-stop centers. As of October 2019, over 112,000 children between the ages of 0-12 had been registered all over the country, including over 32,000 children below 12 months; the highest number of registrations since 2016.

“Birth registration in West and Central Africa remained stagnant for a long time, leaving millions of children without their basic right to legal identity. This situation has now changed and millions more children are registered at birth,” said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “With UNICEF’s support and under the leadership of the African Union and of national governments, countries have invested in integrating birth registration in health and immunization platforms to extend the coverage and accessibility of services and reach even the most vulnerable populations. This simple shift in service delivery is not only low cost but effective in increasing national registration rates and contributing to progress in the region as a whole.”

Despite progress, most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are lagging behind the rest of the world and some of the lowest levels of registration are found in Chad (12 percent) and Guinea-Bissau (24 percent).

“Governments must scale up proven solutions to improve birth registration if they are to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target on making every child count,” stressed Marie-Pierre Poirier.

In Liberia, the birth registration is under the mandate of the Ministry of Health. “Together with UNICEF we work closely on creating an enabling environment to expand the provision of services to 26 new birth registration centers located in public and private hospitals,” said Chea Sanford Wesseh, Assistant Minister of Vital and Health Statistics, Liberia. “Meanwhile, we are revising the Public Health Law of 1976 to extend the time frame for current birth registration from 14 to 30 days.”

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, and distance to the nearest registration facility. Traditional customs and practices in some communities – such as new mothers staying indoors or single mothers’ inability to register their children – may also deter or prevent formal birth registration in the permitted timeframe.

Even when children’s births 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.