CRC Concluding Observations: Angola, 2018
Published: 27/Jun/2018
Source: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
CRC/C/AGO/CO/5-7
Concluding observations on the combined fifth to seventh periodic reports of Angola
Extract:
Birth registration, name and nationality
18.The Committee welcomes the State party’s efforts to achieve universal birth registration, inter alia, by waiving registration fees for Angolan citizens for first-time applications for civil registration and the issuance of identity cards, including retroactively for unregistered adults, and by registering children born to refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the assistance of UNICEF. The Committee is nevertheless seriously concerned that:
(a)The goal of registering 100 per cent of children at birth by 2017 set out in the National Development Plan 2013–2017 has not been achieved;
(b)The State party’s mass registration programme is continuing to be implemented with only a significantly reduced budget;
(c)Birth registration rates remain low, with a considerable divide between urban and rural areas, which represents an obstacle to preschool and school enrolment, a root cause of child labour and offences under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and may lead to underage recruitment into the armed forces contrary to the provisions of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict;
(d)Practical obstacles to birth registration for children born to foreigners, including refugees and asylum seekers, are prevalent owing to a lack of clear guidance provided to birth registration officials, a situation that may render such children stateless;
(e)The legal requirement for all children to obtain an identification card by the age of 10 for acceptance to secondary education is not always implemented in practice and is thus one of the reasons why some adolescents do not attend school.
19. Taking note of target 16.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals on providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, and reiterating its previous recommendations (see CRC/C/AGO/CO/2-4, para. 35), the Committee urges the State party to:
(a) Extend the national mass birth registration campaign to parents, including non-Angolan citizens, refugees and asylum seekers, as this facilitates birth registration for their children;
(b) Allocate sufficient financial, human and technical resources to the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Programme for Africa, which includes birth registration, and decentralize birth registration as far as possible to benefit rural and marginalized populations, including by establishing mobile birth registration teams;
(c) Continue to conduct awareness-raising programmes, including campaigns, on birth registration within communities, in particular in rural areas;
(d) Continue to strengthen existent multisectoral approaches, increase effective coordination between relevant ministries and connect birth registration with social protection and health, education and social services;
(e) Step up efforts to remove practical obstacles, including by providing clear guidance and training to birth registration officials, to comprehensive birth registration of all children born to foreigners in Angola, including refugees and asylum seekers;
(f) Introduce legal safeguards for children in the State party who would otherwise be stateless, and consider ratifying the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness;
(g) Take all the necessary measures to expand access to identification cards for all children and to other forms of identification documents for asylum-seeking and refugee children;
(h) Seek technical assistance from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and UNICEF, among others, for the implementation of the recommendations in subparagraphs (a)–(g) above.
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