The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has described birth registration as the first and most fundamental right of every child, saying it provides access to education, healthcare, social protection and other lifelong opportunities.
UNICEF Chief of Lagos Field Office, Celine Lafoucriere, stated this on Tuesday in Lagos at a two-day media dialogue on birth registration organised in collaboration with the National Population Commission (NPC). The workshop, themed “Giving Every Child a Legal Identity by Driving Birth Registration in Nigeria,” brought together journalists from South-West states and Edo State.
Lafoucriere said civil registration provided children with the legal identity needed to be recognised by the state. She explained that registered children could access healthcare and education, while their legal identity would later enable them to vote, own property and inherit wealth.
She noted that birth registration was also essential for national planning and social protection, warning that unregistered children were often excluded from government budgets and social registers. She said about 3.5 million unregistered children could mean significant gaps in government planning and funding for health, education and welfare programmes.
Lafoucriere urged journalists to educate parents on the importance of birth registration and where they could access the service, particularly at Primary Healthcare Centres and community registration points. The Lagos State Director of NPC, Sherifdeen Kekere-Ekun, also called on the media to use news reports, radio jingles, television programmes, features and social media campaigns to raise awareness and promote birth registration.
