Increase birth registration, UNICEF says

Most newborns in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are unregistered, according to a report released on Tuesday by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), which calls on governments to provide the structures needed for families to register their babies.

In the year 2000, about 50 million newborns were unregistered which, in legal terms, means they "do not exist", says the report, titled 'Birth registration - Right from the start'. During that year, 70 percent of babies born in Sub-Saharan African were not registered. South Asia and the Middle East/North Africa followed with rates of 63 and 31 percent respectively. On the other hand, the rate was two percent in industrialised countries.

The 34-page report, published in collaboration with the Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, highlights the advantages of birth registration, as well as the consequences of not registering newborns. A registered birth means the child has rights and can also benefit from existing social services such as education, health care, legal protection. Unregistered children can fall prey to discrimination, neglect and abuse. They can also be denied basic social services since there is no proof of their existence.

[The full report is available at http://www.unicef.org]