{"id":29987,"date":"2019-12-11T16:54:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T16:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/?p=29987"},"modified":"2020-10-30T17:03:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T17:03:20","slug":"gambia-despite-significant-increase-in-birth-registration-about-half-of-gambian-children-remain-invisible-unicef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/gambia-despite-significant-increase-in-birth-registration-about-half-of-gambian-children-remain-invisible-unicef\/","title":{"rendered":"Gambia: Despite Significant Increase in Birth Registration, About Half of Gambian Children Remain ‘Invisible’ – UNICEF"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Proportion of registered births increased almost five per cent over past decade, yet tens of thousands of children under-five have never been officially recorded<\/em><\/p>\n

Banjul, 11 December 2019<\/strong> \u2013 The number of children whose births are officially registered has increased slightly in The Gambia, but tens of thousands of children remain unregistered.\u00a0 The trend mirrors the global reality where 166 million children under-five, or 1 in 4, remain unregistered, according to a new report released by UNICEF today on its own 73rd birthday.<\/p>\n

Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030: Are we on track? \u2013 which analyses data from 174 countries \u2013 shows that the proportion of children under-five registered globally is up around 20 per cent from 10 years ago \u2013 increasing from 63 per cent to 75 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have registered huge gains but too many children in The Gambia are still without birth certificates,\u201d said UNICEF The Gambia Country Representative, Sandra Lattouf. \u201cToo many children remain uncounted and are therefore virtually nonexistent in the eyes of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

In The Gambia, data from The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2018 shows a slow increase of 5.8% in the number of births registered from 2010 \u2013 2018. While the figures look bad, 78 out of every hundred mothers and caregivers (78.9%) know how to registrar their children.<\/p>\n

\u201cBirth registration is not a privilege; it is a fundamental right that every child is entitled to,\u201d said Sandra Lattouf. \u201cWe must safeguard the legal identity of children and registering them is the first and most important step toward ensuring that every child has legal recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030, UNICEF calls for five actions to protect all children:<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Provide every child with a certificate upon birth.
\n\u2022\u00a0Empower all parents, including single parents, regardless of gender, to register their children at birth and for free during the first year of life.
\n\u2022\u00a0Link birth registration to basic services, particularly health, social protection and education, as an entry point for registration.
\n\u2022\u00a0Invest in safe and innovative technological solutions to allow every child to be registered, including in hard-to-reach areas.
\n\u2022\u00a0Engage communities to demand birth registration for every child.<\/p>\n

Like other child rights, there is also a gender disparity in birth registration in The Gambia. Boys are more registered than girls \u2013 59.5% and 56.2% respectively. Barriers to registration in The Gambia include the inflexibility of the birth registration process, low awareness about the importance birth registration, and distance to the nearest registration facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some birth registration centers, thousands of birth certificates remain accumulated without their owners claiming them\u201d said Ms. Lattouf. \u201cParents and caregivers must build interest in the registration of their children and ensure every child under their care is registered.\u201d<\/p>\n

UNICEF recognizes these challenges and has made birth registration a priority in the UNICEF The Gambia Country Programme Document 2017 \u2013 2021. With support from UNICEF, the government of The Gambia has also integrated birth registration into the delivery of key social services such as cash transfers programmes. UNICEF calls for a national drive to have every child registered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the business of every person in The Gambia to have every child registered\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Abdoulie Sey<\/div>\n
Communication Officer<\/div>\n
UNICEF The Gambia<\/div>\n
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Tel: +220 3940384<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Email: asey@unicef.org<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read original: https:\/\/www.unicef.org\/gambia\/press-releases\/despite-significant-increase-birth-registration-about-half-gambian-children-remain<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Proportion of registered births increased almost five per cent over past decade, yet tens of thousands of children under-five have never been officially recorded Banjul, 11 December 2019 \u2013 The number of children whose births are officially registered has increased slightly in The Gambia, but tens of thousands of children remain unregistered.\u00a0 The trend mirrors […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","region-gambia","type-news-articles","item-year-660","item-theme-birth-registration"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29987"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29994,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29987\/revisions\/29994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}