By IJEOMA UKAZU
Any child whose birth is not registered, in legal terms does not exist. Such a child cannot be planned for by any government.
Birth registration according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, is the process of recording a child’s birth. It is a permanent and official record of a child’s existence and provides legal recognition of that child’s identity.
At a minimum, it establishes a legal record of where the child was born and who his or her parents are. Birth registration is required for a child to get a birth certificate – his or her first legal proof of identity.
With some level of improvement, Nigeria now has nearly 60 per cent of its children registered at birth with civil authorities, when compared to 47 per cent in 2016. While this is applaudable, Nigeria still has over 40 per cent of its children under the age of five unregistered and unaccounted for. This, nonetheless, affects planning across the board.
Remarkably, states like Lagos and the federal capital territory, FCT, topped the rank with a high number of birth registration according to a recently released Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, MICS6 result. The survey was conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in collaboration with UNICEF.
The MICS6 survey puts Lagos at 94 per cent, followed closely is the FCT-Abuja at 87 per cent. While the lowest levels of birth registration are in Jigawa at 23.6 per cent and Sokoto at 22.5 per cent.
Experts said for states to up their game in childbirth registration, they need to strategise and map out modalities to improve the process as it greatly affects government planning.
Not resting on its oars and with a vision to achieve 100 per cent child birth registration in Lagos State, the state Head, of the Vital Registration Department, National Population Commission, NPoPc, Mr Nwannukwu Elias Ikechukwu in an interview with The Abuja Inquirer Newspaper revealed that Lagos is putting all strategy to ensuring no child is left behind on birth registration.
He said, ” The remarkable success is encouraging and for Lagos to be able to bridge the gap between the registered and unregistered children it needs to create more avenues to register more children in the State.
“Since the benefits and importance of birth registration is utmost in our mind we go all out to make sure that children in Lagos are registered and birth certificate issued. First of all, we embark on both passive and active systems of birth registration in the state.”
Explaining further, Ikechukwu said, “Passive system of registration means that our comptrollers or registrar’s stayed in the office and people come to register their children’s birth.
“The second system which is active is a canvassing system of birth registration whereby the registrars leave their offices and go house to house to educate people on the importance of birth registration. This active system of birth registration is mostly used in Lagos State.
“Thirdly most of our centres are located in the public health centres and we have an understanding with health workers to refer the mothers of these children to our offices for birth registration. The result has been wonderful.”
He pointed out that in some primary healthcare centres, PHCs, that do not have registration centres, “what we often do is call the annexe registration centres to visit these PHCs on particular days to register children.”
Explaining what Lagos state did differently to top the 36 states, the Head of Vital Registration said the Commission used influential people in the local government areas, the religious leaders, pastors and imams to encourage parents to go and register their children during naming ceremonies.
He adds, “We also work with the traditional rulers as they always know when a child is born in the community. The ruler sends a congratulatory message to the family who just had a child and also tells them to go and register their children.
“We signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with the ministry of education Lagos State. With the MOU, no child is enrolled in any school without the parents providing the child’s birth certificate,” he explained.
Ikechukwu appealed for support to sponsor more birth registration mop-ups in Lagos State while stating that more avenues is been mapped out to achieve 100 per cent child registration in the State.
In his words, “Mop-up exercises remain the best way of registering children in Lagos. It also enhances publicity since these ad-hoc registrars go from house to house educating parents on the importance of birth registration. Last year, we embarked on birth registration mop-up exercises in five LGAs: Amuwo Odofin, Ifako Ijaiye, Mushin, Ikorodu and Ojo and as many as 585,000 children were registered and birth certificates issued.
“This year, we have done a birth registration mop up in Alimosho, the largest LGA in the whole country and we registered and gave birth certificates to 154,000 children. We are set to embark on another mop-up exercise in Kosofe and Oshodi Isolo LGAs. My choice of where to do mop-up exercises is determined by the population in that LGA,” he stated.
Ikechukwu points out that birth registration further secures social amenities for a child as well as ensures their protection, adding that having a birth certificate protects children from child labour and child trafficking. He stressed that it helps the child to locate his or her age grade and it is a requirement for enrolment in school and to obtain an international passport.
He appreciates UNICEF for her huge support and also solicits more funding to embark on more mop-up exercises, adding that it is easier to get to the top than to stay at the top
In his words, the UNICEF Chief of Monitoring for Results, M4R, Mr Claes Johanson, said although there is a 10 per cent increase in the national number of birth registration between 2016 and 2021, there is still an existing gap to be filled.
He said that the MICS6 survey also shows that 3 per cent of children under the age of five had their births registered, but do not have birth certificates.
Johanson further explained that the survey showed that 2 out of every 3 mothers and caregivers of children aged below five years whose births were not registered did not know how to register births.
According to him, “MICS6 revealed that the percentage of children under the age of five whose births are registered ranges from as high as 89 per cent for the richest wealth quintile to as low as 33 per cent for the poorest wealth quintile.”