United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF has said that registering child’s birth is a mandate given to National Population commission (NPC).
UNICEF disclosed this during the training of selected health workers at City Hub event center,nAbakaliki.
Speaking, a child protection Specialist with UNICEF Enugu, Mr Victor Atuchukwu explained birth registration done with NPC is accepted Worldwide than the ones done by other bodies.
He however, noted that recent records by National Demographic Health Surveys (NDHS) show that child registration in the country is still very low.
Quoting NDHs 2018 reports on birth registration, Mr Atuchukwu said that 57 percent of children in Nigeria do not have their births registered.
He said, “out of 43 percent registered births only 62 percent are registered with NPC.
“26 percent are registered with private clinic/hospitals, 9 percent are registered with Local Government Administratiom while 3 percent are registered with other authorities”.
He noted that non registration of new born child has a lot of disadvantages to the child, the community and the country in general.
According to him non registration of children’s births puts their access to basic service under threat.
He noted that birth registration also helps to check incidences of child abuse, child trafficking, early marriages, child labour, unlawful detention, etc.
“Birth registration data, when correctly collected, can therefore play an important role in the planning of a country’s economic and social development”.
Earlier, the state Director of National Population Commission (NPC), Mr Edward Ogbu said that all birth certificates issued by local governments and hospitals are not acceptable for official purposes in the country.
He said that only birth certificates issued by NPC is acceptable as the commission is the only agency legally authorised to issue such documents in the country.
Mr Ogbu solicited for the help of government and health workers in the mobilisation of parents to register their children.
