as fundamental human rights

From Linda Asante-Agyei, GNA Special Correspondent, Dakar, Courtesy Plan Ghana

Dakar, Feb. 26, GNA- The famous old musician, Harry Belanfontente on Wednesday called on African Leaders to redouble their efforts at registering births and treating it as a fundamental human right for all. "To really know what progress we are making for our children, we have to know how many children we have to begin with so that we can provide services, save lives and plan for the future."

He noted that birth registration was a child's ticket to citizenship and that Governments should ensure that registration facilities were also extended to remote communities.

Belanfonte made the call when he addressed about 200 participants attending the first conference on Birth Registration in the West and Central African countries in Senegal.

The conference, jointly organised Plan, UNFPA and UNICEF, is to enable participants to address ways of improving birth registration system in 24 countries in West and Central Africa.

Mr Belanfonte said it was essential that every child were registered. "The simple act of counting is an expression of what a country intends to make of its people", he said.

"For children to count they must be counted and not registering them means they are being denied of their legal documentation, their names, identity and this jeopardises their very lives as future leaders. "For many people, the family resources are sucked dry just trying to get to the registrar in the city only to be met with a fee, discrimination and resistance is just appalling", Mr Belanfonte said. He urged governments as a matter of urgency to ensure that birth registration was compulsory, free and readily accessible so that these children could also enjoy the rights they deserved.

Mr Martin McCann, International Deputy Executive Director of Plan, said addressing the situation in West Africa was a Herculean task that demanded strong partnerships.

He said birth registration was the key foundation stones of democracy and good governance and urged African governments to ensure that every citizen was registered.

He said Plan together with other partners had been involved in the birth registration of children and urged other stakeholders to join in the exercise and "remember to involve the children themselves whom we know with their commitment and enthusiasm could identify their own problems and solutions affecting their lives".

Ms Rima Salah, West and Central Africa Regional Director for UNICEF, said new strategies have been introduced to reach the marginalised in society and ensure that the system was sustained for development planning, hence, the need to register every person.

Miss Marian M. Bangwa, from Sierra Leone, on behalf of the children of African Movement for Working Children and Youth, called on parents to ensure that their children were registered to enable them to have identity, citizenship and also enjoy all the social, health education and economic amenities of the nation.

"There are many children out there especially in the war zone countries, who would like to go to school like their mates in the developed countries, but they have no birth certificates, others have had theirs burnt during the war whilst others, their fathers do not see the usefulness of it", the 18 year old Marian said.

She also appealed to governments and other stakeholders to ensure that birth registration was made free and accessible to all, especially those in the remote communities, who have to walk miles to the cities to have their wards registered.