Unregistered children are born, live and die in anonymity. With their physical and legal existence unnoticed by national authorities, they are often condemned to lives spent on the margins of society.
A name, an official identity, and a nationality recognised by everyone: most of us take these things for granted. Yet, for nearly a quarter-billion children around the world, including tens of millions in sub-Saharan Africa, such basic rights are unattainable luxuries.
Many parents, because of limited formal education or ignorance of official procedures, settle instead for rituals, ceremonies or just birth records issued by hospitals. Political crises, wars and internal displacements aggravate the problem: parents fleeing to safety with their children are typically not preoccupied with registering them properly.
First, although there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the wide disparities in registration between and within different countries, successful approaches in one place could inspire governments elsewhere.
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