The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has tasked the commitment of Nigeria government to improve civil registrations, especially of infants, on the continent.
UNICEF says Nigeria has the highest number of children without birth records among 10 nations assessed in Africa.
Sharon Oladiji, UNICEF Child Protection specialist, at Birth Evaluation Report dissemination event on Monday in Abuja, said the number of children under five in Nigeria was projected to increase from 32 million in 2015 to 58 million by 2050.
“The Federal Government must ensure the birth registration of children in the country to properly plan for their education, healthcare and other services. We need birth records for them because this is critical for their education, health and other social initiatives,” she said.
Birth registration is the first step towards recognising a child’s inalienable right as a human being. Globally, the births of more than 50 million children – which represent more than 40 percent of total births worldwide – go unregistered each year.
Oladiji said between now and 2030, 136 million babies would be born in Nigeria at 9 million births per year, and from 2031 until mid century there would be 224 million more.
“Assuming the current trends persist, Nigeria will be born to 1 in every 11 global births in 2050. A special attention is required for the under-five children in Nigeria. Investing in girls and women, especially in reproductive health, education and preventing child marriage is key to Africa’s demographic transition,” she said.
However, in Nigeria, there are provisions in the current legislation for birth registration. The 2003 Child Rights Act in its Section 5 states that: ‘Every child has the right to a name and the birth of every child shall be registered’.
According to Pernille Ironside, deputy representative, UNICEF, for Nigeria to achieve Birth Registration for all children in Nigeria, we have been addressing bottlenecks that impede Registration. We have been doing this with the fantastic support of EU in Nigeria.
“From 2012 to 2016, we increased the number of births registered in Nigeria from 3 million to 5 million.
“However, only half of the children under five in Nigeria have their births registered. This is not enough. I hope we can take this opportunity to commit to a quantum leap to increase Birth Registration in the country because every single child counts and that counting starts at the moment of Birth Registration,” she said.
Doyin Odubanjo, chairman, Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria, Lagos chapter, said for Nigeria to progress in birth registration, there should be connection with the local government, health systems and services to ensure every new born child was counted and information documented.
“Engaging the religious bodies to encourage members on the need to register their child at birth is also strategy to help, the country merge collation of birth registration; I urge that citizens should embrace registration for easy identification and policy making,” Odubanjo said.
