World. Children without names
Two out of ten children are not registered at the civil registry office. That’s 150 million: deprived of one of their basic rights
(by Luca Lorusso)
For every ten children born in the last five years in the world, two have not been registered.
There are 150 million in all, according to a recent Unicef report, distributed in many countries of the global South. Ninety million in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
They are “nameless” children with no legal identity. Legally invisible. Inexistent to the countries in which they were born.
It is no coincidence that the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which celebrated its 35th birthday on November 20, places the right to a child’s name and personal identity among the fundamental ones, right after the right to life, survival and development.
“Society,” reads the Unicef report, ”recognizes for the first time a child’s existence and identity through birth registration. A birth certificate is proof of this legal identity and is the basis on which children can establish a nationality, avoid the risk of statelessness and seek protection from violence and exploitation.
For example, possession of a birth certificate can help prevent child labor, child marriage, and the recruitment of minors into the armed forces, as it allows the child’s age to be verified.
The birth certificate can also be required to access services in areas such as health, education and justice.”
Behind the anonymous figure, there are real faces and lives: Yemeni children born in a country at war for years, discriminated against and unrecognized Rohingya in Myanmar, newborns from the Gaza Strip, but also simply a child from Chad or Papua New Guinea born in a remote village to a lonely mother without means.
The reasons for non-registration can be many: unaffordable costs for families, impassable distances of offices from birthplaces, ethnic or religious discrimination, and lack of awareness in parents.
“I have seven children,” says Rehema, a Tanzanian mother, in a quote quoted in Unicef’s report, ”My eldest was lucky enough to get her birth certificate with the help of a friend, as she needed it to enter university. I could not help her. […] I could not afford the cost and procedure of getting my children’s birth certificates. We have financial problems, and although I know it is important, it simply was not a priority.”
One hundred and fifty million children under the age of 5 who are not registered at birth correspond to the entire population of France and Germany combined. It is a figure that we must increase by another 50 million if we add those children who, although registered, do not have a certificate in their hands.
The drafters of the Unicef report indicate a positive global trend (in 2024, the percentage of registered little ones in the world was 77 percent, while in 2019 it was 75 percent) but the improvement is less than expected. The Agenda 2030 target on this issue will certainly not be met…
(Missioni Consolata, Jan. 17, 2025)