To celebrate the children of Africa and calls for serious introspection and commitment towards addressing the numerous challenges they face in Africa, the DAC 2020 theme reflect on ‘Access to a Child-Friendly Justice System in Africa’ as adopted by the African Union Executive Council, during its 34th Ordinary Session, held in February 2019.

 

As every year on 16 June, the African Union and its Member States observe the Day of the African Child (DAC) as a commemoration of the 16th June 1976 student uprising in Soweto, South Africa, where students who marched in protest against apartheid-inspired education, were brutally murdered.

 

The DAC 2020 theme of the year set to examine the elements of a child-friendly justice system, including the application of a child rights-based approach and use the four principles of children’s rights as a tool for realizing access to a child-friendly justice system in Africa. The year-long activities aim at ensuring equal access to child-friendly justice to all groups of children in Africa. 

 

In this regard, the African Union, jointly with UNICEF, have launched the No Name Campaign: For Every Child a Legal Identity, For Every Child Access to Justice, identifies birth registration as a key element for the access to child friendly justice.

 

The campaign aims at rallying more actions and speedy implementation of commitments by the African Union member states, towards the universal registration of children at birth and the urgency to reposition civil registration and vital statistics in Africa, to address the indignity of invisibility. The launch of the campaign is equally timely as concerns rise on the threat of birth registration rates falling behind amid COVID-19 pandemic.

 

In examining the elements of a child-friendly justice system, including the application of a child rights-based approach for realizing access to a child-friendly justice system in Africa, the “No Name Campaign” recognizes that children whose births are not registered and who lack proof of their age are more vulnerable to marginalization, discrimination, abuse, and associated protection risks such as child marriage, child labour, forced recruitment to armed groups and forces, and trafficking. 

 

A child-friendly justice system refers to all procedures of judicial or administrative nature, whether formal or informal, where children are brought into contact with, or are involved in civil, criminal or administrative law matters. The campaign not only emphasizes the key role that birth registration plays to prove a child’s entitlement to access justice, but underscores that the ideals in Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, will not be achieved without securing, protecting, and promoting the rights of children as the drivers of Africa’s renaissance. 
 

A well-functioning CRVS system is also a major source of continuous and reliable vital statistics and population data at local level. It is important for effective implementation of universal and inclusive development, and for monitoring of progress towards national and international development targets such as the SDGs and Agenda 2063.

 

AU Senior Officials Meeting

 

High Level Dialogue on  Birth Registration

 

The No Name Campaign call for action “For Every Child a Legal Identity, For Every Child Access to Justice”, focuses on the need to;

 

This aligns with both Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which call for legal identity for all, including birth registration.

 

The realization of both Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development requires that every vital event is registered and information related to the events are collected, compiled, produced and disseminated in a regular and continuous manner to guide policy and planning, to inform decisions, enable all stakeholders to track progress and make the necessary adjustments to ensure transparency and mutual accountability.

 

Several legal instruments and protocols of the AU call for the promotion and strengthening of birth registration, notably the African Charter on Human Rights; the Convention on the Rights of Children and  the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

 

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child is designed to hold Member States accountable in promoting the rights and welfare of children in their respective countries by adopting, ratifying and implementing the provisions of the Charter.

 

Article 6 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child contains provisions relating to naming, acquisition of nationality, and birth registration. The African Union Assembly in July 2016 declared 2017-2026 as the decade for repositioning civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) in Africa as continental, regional and national development agenda and urges governments to respond with appropriate action. Ensuring universal birth registration is one of the focus that needs action to realize the decade. 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic could worsen the situation as it impacts both civil registration service delivery and the use of services. Countries have introduced lockdowns and restrictions.

 

Registration centres and service points are closed, core hours are generally reduced, and staff is not necessarily in place, reducing the accessibility and availability of services. Civil registration service points are also not adequately equipped in meeting safety and hygiene requirements. Use of services is affected by fear of contamination or lack of means to transport, particularly in the remote areas. Past experiences show that children that are not registered within the legal delay are unlikely to be registered later, unless through campaigns when fees are removed from parents.

 

To evaluate the negative impact that the COVID-19 can have on birth registration, and how, without mitigation measures, UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office has analyzed two scenarios: 

Universal birth registration provides every child with a birth certificate, an essential legal document required to secure basic human rights to name, identity and nationality. Birth certificate is the basic legal document for securing recognition of individuals before the law and safeguarding their human rights and access to basic social services.

 

In Africa, more than half of the children are not registered at birth, which renders most of the region’s poor unseen, uncounted and excluded, and by extension, affects their ability to enjoy universal human rights. 

 

A birth certificate, as a legal document and proof of age, helps to prevent violations of rights of a child, including child marriage, trafficking, child labour and the use of child soldiers, particularly among vulnerable and marginalized populations. 

 

Birth certificate also facilitates access to school, health services and social protection benefits, which reduces vulnerability of children to poverty and risk of exploitation.

 

Legal identity is a fundamental human right, as referenced in several international human rights instruments and conventions. The right of all individuals to be recognized as a person before the law stated in Article 6 of the Universal Declaration on human Rights. 

 

The right to be registered immediately after birth with a name and the right to acquire a nationality, pursuant to article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is an example of a human right that derives directly from civil registration.

 

Similarly, article 6 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provides that every child must be registered at birth and has the right to a name and a nationality.

 

To accelerate birth registration towards universalisation in African countries, an ambitious mobilization is required to reach out to traditional actors of birth registration, international organizations, governments and administrations, but also to pitch new public and private partners which have been largely unexplored so far, and to raise awareness among communities.

 

These strategies can be amplified, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic minimized, through investments in transforming largely paper-based systems to a digital system, thereby improving efficiency and the need for physical use of services. While national CRVS reforms have been postponed or put on hold in most countries due to the emergency,

 

COVID-19 recovery plans offer an opportunity to finally start investing in modern but contextualized, digital  birth registration.  This is a core engagement of the African Digital Transformation Strategy (DTS) 2020-2030, endorsed by the African Union Summit of the Heads of State and Governments held in Addis Ababa in February 2020. 

 

The strategy to accelerate more actions towards birth registration focuses on the need to;

For decades, efforts aimed at improving CRVS systems in Africa were largely dominated by isolated project-based and ad hoc exercises with no link to national development frameworks or policy guidance. Since 2010, the biennial Conference of Ministers Responsible for Civil Registration provided policy directions necessary to transform and improve CRVS systems in the region. In 2016, African member States declared 2017-2026 to be “Decade for repositioning CRVS in Africa’s continental, regional and national development agenda.”

 

The policy directions by the Ministerial conference and the political commitment at country level with governments taking leadership and ownership has brought a paradigm shift from a fragmented and ad hoc approach to holistic and integrated CRVS systems improvement initiatives.

The fourth Conference of Ministers held in December 2017 in Nouakchott, Mauritania declared August 10 to be ‘African Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Day,’ and advised African Union member States to observe the day. The AU Executive Council, during their 32nd Ordinary Session, 25-26 January 2018, endorsed the recommendations set out in the Ministerial Declaration. 

 

The demand for registration services remain weak because many people have no adequate awareness about the importance of civil registration for them and their families and the implications that this has for improving access to core government services. African CRVS Day observed every year on the 10th of August helps to improve public awareness of the importance of making everyone visible in Africa through universal birth registration and certification. In 2019, Africa commemorated the CRVS Day, under the theme, “Birth Certificate for All: Fundamental for Protecting Human Rights and Promoting Inclusion.”

 

As birth registration needs a stronger and sustainable commitment from both local and national authorities with international support, more funding and partnerships to build inovative solutions, and a large awareness in the public, a wide range of audiences ranging from local to international levels must be involved to move to an effective acceleration of birth registration. 

 

Target audiences	Expected results
Governments and administrations	to sustainably commit to BR as a key government service
International organizations	to support countries in reaching universal targets
International donors	to help design a better financing scheme and support the investment costs
Private sector	to help financing and create global digitized solutions
Local communities, local actors in health, schools, social assistance	to promote the use of services to help enhance digitized BR
Parents and children	to consider children’s legal identity as a passport for life
Celebrities, media and social networks	to spread the messages and information