NGO calls for improved birth registration efforts

An NGO in the Republic of Congo has launched a nationwide appeal for improved birth registration efforts in the country. The call coincided with the annual Day of the African Child, observed on Monday. "It is unacceptable that thousands of children [in the Congo] are not registered upon their arrival in the world," Yvette Ambendet Mbeto, president of the Association chefs de famille et educatrices d'enfants, told IRIN on Monday at the conclusion of a seminar on children's rights. "Registration provides the proof of the child's existence, of its membership in the human community," she said. "This is a primary right belonging to all children. A child is a gift from God who deserves every protection available from its parents and community." Calls for free registration of births and greater involvement and supervision by state authorities were among the recommendations made by the 40 women who participated in the three-day seminar. An estimated 44 percent of Congolese children aged under five years are believed to be unregistered with government authorities. Speaking in the capital, Brazzaville, at a ceremony to commemorate the Day of the African Child, Minister of Humanitarian Action Emilienne Raoul said that the Congolese government planned this year to account for some 30 percent of unregistered children identified during a recent census conducted in the city. She added that the campaign would be expanded nationwide in 2004. Under Article Seven of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children "shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents". The Convention, which came into force on 2 September 1990, has been ratified by 191 countries to date, including the Congo. [For the complete Convention on the Rights of the Child go to www.unicef.org]