Parents urged to register children
The Acting Registrar of Births at the Births and Deaths Registry, Mr John Yao Agbeko, has appealed to parents to endeavour to register their children in order to give them an identity and also help in the development planning of the country.
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“When children are not registered, they technically do not exist and are not factored into the scheme of planning for the progress of the nation” he said.
He also said birth registration was a right of the child and when every child was registered at birth, it helped in making information available for national development.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in December last year issued a statement to the effect that nearly 230 million children under age five have never been registered; that is about one in three of all children aged under-five around the world.
Ghana’s situation
Mr Agbeko said the department had moved from 17 per cent coverage of fresh births in 2004 to 65 per cent in 2011. In 2012, coverage declined to 60 per cent but increased to 70 per cent in 2013.
Efforts to get more registered
Aside the normal hospital registration of children after birth, the department also moves to the communities to register those who were not registered at birth. It also uses the birth and death day celebration to educate people on the importance of birth registration.
The department also takes advantage of the “My First Day at School” programme by going to schools to register children who were not registered at birth.
Challenges
He indicated that although UNICEF had assisted with the computerisation of the department, it still faced a lot of challenges. For instance, he said, out of the 393 registries nationwide, the staff strength was only 247 and, therefore, the department had resorted to the use of volunteers.
He appealed to the government to allow the department to retain some of the revenue it generated to help it run its programmes. He also appealed to the government to provide the department with a new office, adding, “our present office was built with plywood in the colonial days. We keep records here. If there is any disaster, the effect will be unbearable”.
Charges for birth registration
It costs nothing to register children under one year. When a child is under five years of age, the charge for registration is GH¢ 5 while those above five pay GH¢20.
Administratively, the department does not register people who are 60 years and above.