Most Nigerian children that are under the age of five have no birth certificate. This was revealed by the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
According to the UNICEF child protection expert in charge of Zone A Field office, Enugu, Victor Atuchukwu, 57 per cent of the children have no birth certificate.
He said, “It is the right of every child to have a birth certificate, but many parents did not consider it important. Without a birth certificate, time would come when the child would discover that he or she had no official record of vital information.”
Covid19 enforces child labour in Uganda
The Director of the National Population Commission in the state, Joachim Ulasi, who noted that the commission did not have enough manpower for birth registration, said, “We just have 148 registration centres, comprising 21 controllers who are deputy chief registrars for the 21 local government areas. If they are removed from the 148, we are left with 127, which are located in health facilities throughout Anambra State. This number is not enough. We have 181 autonomous communities and we need at least one centre in each community while the large communities should have two or more.”
Ulasi, however, added that NPC had concluded plans to digitalise the birth registration exercise in the state.
