CRC Concluding Observations: Mali, 2007
Published: 3/May/2007
Source: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
CRC/C/MLI/CO/2
Forty-fourth session
Concluding observations: Mali
Nationality
35. The Committee is concerned that current provisions prevent children from deriving nationality from their mothers.
36. As a matter of non-discrimination and in the best interests of the child, the Committee recommends that the State party undertake the necessary legislative measures to ensure that the child can derive nationality not only from the father but also from the mother.
Birth registration
37. The Committee welcomes the State party’s initiatives to promote birth registration, such as the campaigns undertaken on the Day of the African Child in 2003; the 2004-2008 action plan to improve registration of civil status (“Plan de la Mission d’Appui à la Consolidation de l’Etat Civil”) and in 2006 the adoption of Law No. 06-024, which governs civil status and ensures free birth registration. However, the Committee is concerned that birth registration is a complicated process, that a large number of children are neither registered at birth nor at a later stage, and that major disparities exist between the birth registration of children in urban and rural and remote areas.
38. The Committee recommends that the State party continue its efforts of systematic birth registration for all children born within the national territory, inter alia by ensuring a simplified and cost-free birth registration process, and by increasing the coverage of the mobile units, especially in rural and remote areas, in order to reach the most disadvantaged populations. The Committee also urges the State party to proceed with the registration of those children who have not yet been registered and to enable them to access, in particular, education and health care.
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