· Over 7.2m Nigerian children not captured at birth
Adeola Adekoya, a new mother cradling her newborn at a Lagos primary healthcare centre, knew the next step.
It wasn't just about diapers and naming ceremonies; it was about securing her child's future through birth registration.
Adeola walked to one of the offices of the PHC, where one of the attendants was seated. Within minutes, a form was handed over to her while she listened to the explanation by the woman who sat across the desk.
Adeola was there as part of the last steps before she took her baby home from the health centre. She was registering the birth of her baby, a critical step to establishing a child's legal proof of identity anywhere in the world.
But most Nigerian mothers like Adeola, are mostly occupied with preparations for the naming ceremony, milk, diapers and rest.
Only a few parents think of the education and future livelihood of their children at that time.
But for every child across the world, according to the UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, Denis Onoise, birth registration is a permanent and official record of a child's existence, and provides legal recognition of that child's identity.
Birth registration is also a vital step that is needed to set children up for the future, and when not done, it may become a burden on their future. Also, everyone has the right to be recognised as a person before the law.
This right of every child to birth registration is enshrined in various international instruments, such as the UN CRC, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Nigeria Child Rights Act.
Findings have shown that without legally recognised identification, such as a birth certificate, children and adults can be denied access to services.
The lack of basic documentation proving a child's identity, including their name, date, and birthplace, can have devastating consequences.
Globally, birth registration is a child's legal passport to existence and essential services. Yet, in Nigeria, 43 percent of under-fives lack this crucial document. This exclusion can have devastating consequences, denying children education, and healthcare, and even leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.
However, the negative impacts of this do not stop in childhood. Growing into adults, these children can be denied the right to vote, access to mobile money or a passport.
Without identification, people are also more susceptible to harmful practices like human trafficking.
Experts say registering a child at birth is like giving them a key to unlocking their legal identity, protecting their rights, and shining a light on any abuses.
Despite these benefits, in Nigeria, 43 percent of children under the age 5 are not registered at birth.
Nigeria has an estimated population of 216,783,381, out of which 16,705,671 are under 5 and 3,554.005 are under one.
According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2021, 57 percent of children under five were registered with the civil registration authority by that age. With these estimates, over 7.2 million Nigerian children were not captured in the birth registration by age 5.
As a result, a total of 7,183,438.53 children are not registered, are legally invisible, and do not exist.
Recognising this urgency, Nigeria is taking a bold step forward with the launch of the electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (e-CRVS) system. This digital platform aims to streamline birth registration, ensuring every child is counted and protected.
"Nigerians, including children, have a lot to benefit from being registered," says Bamidele Sadiku of the National Population Commission (NPC). "We're working hard to integrate birth registration with National Identity Management, ensuring efficient data collection and sharing."
Experts say the adoption of digital birth registration in the country would speed up the registration of births and ensure the rights of every Nigerian child.
"We want to make birth registration faster, hence, the reason we are going digital. We are working hard to ensure that all vital events, such as births, deaths, and divorces, are registered in Nigeria.
Last year, President Bola Tinubu inaugurated the national coordination committee of the electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (e-CRVS) system under the National Population Commission (NPC).
The platform is to digitalise all civil documentation such as birth and stillbirth registration, birth attestation, adoption, marriage notification, divorce notification, migration, and death.
Speaking to Vanguard shortly after a 2-day media dialogue on e-birth registration in Lagos, the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, Child Protection Specialist, Denis Onoise, said to ensure that all children are tracked and captured, they want to make birth registration faster, hence, the reason they are going digital.
"We worked in 20 states last year, with plans to add other states in 2024. We intend to flag off the e-birth registration before the end of the month in five states including Ekiti, Edo, Osun Ogun and Oyo states. The plan is to flag off the e-birth registration exercise, and those who are trained will go into communities, go into the state, and start to register children," he disclosed.
Onoise who explained the importance of birth registration, said: "We worked in 20 states last year, with plans to add other states in 2024. We intend to flag off the e-birth registration before the end of the month. These states include Ekiti, Edo, Osun, Ogun and Oyo states. Those who are trained will go into communities, go into the state, and start to register children," he revealed.
He explained that birth registration is the process of officially documenting a birth with a government authority, while a birth certificate is a paper issued by the state to the parent or caregiver as a result of the process.
He said integrating birth registration with Health and National Identity Management Systems would capture all immunisation activities and records for the child, and generates the National Identification Number (NIN) of the child whilst capturing birth registration.
Speaking on the benefits of birth registration, he explained that health and immunisation services were critical to achieving the necessary decentralisation of birth registration that is required for the achievement of SDG 16.9.
Onoise said that civil registration and vital statistics remain the foundation of the identity ecosystem and by creating unique identity numbers at birth that link together civil registration and health records, the use of health facilities and frequent contact between caregivers of young children and health services will help to reduce parents and guardians service costs.
"eCRVS can serve as the backbone of an electronic health administration system for improved monitoring, planning and service delivery, as well as enhanced monitoring of each child's health status. Also, establishing an organic relationship, thriving on the respective strengths, and complementing each other is mutually beneficial for both health and CRVS systems," he added.
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He said to ensure the proper identity of children UNICEF, in collaboration with the federal government, will be launching e-birth registration in five Southern states, targeting to capture 928,523 under-five children before the end of 2024.
In an interview with a birth registration officer at Sangotedo Primary Healthcare Centre, Mr. Okesanjo Olusola explained that the introduction of e-birth registration would be faster and remove the loads of work that surround manual registration, which he described as "cumbersome and tiring".
Olusola, who is also the Comptroller of Etiosa Local Government area in Lagos State, explained that this year, the centre has registered about 1,363 births. "We have two methods of registration. We have active and we have passive. The passive is registration, the registrar is here. People come from outside to register their birth. We have stakeholders in all the health facilities around, the direct mothers and parents, to come to this registration centre. Then the active aspect is the registrar goes out, visits some key areas where new babies are captured."
He confirmed that birth registration for children aged 0 to 18 years is free in Lagos.
Disclosing that there are 4,000 civil registration centres across 774 LGAs in Nigeria, NPC, Lagos state, Bamidele Sadiku said e-birth registration would provide an identity that usually enables access to various basic rights and services as bonafide citizens.
For children like Adeola's newborn, e-registration signifies a future filled with opportunity. A birth certificate becomes not just a document, but a key unlocking a world of possibilities.
