Giving Every Child a Sense of Belonging: Improving Birth Registration in Developing Countries

Abstract

The registration of a child’s birth recognises the child as a unique individual, and creates a legal platform for accessing life-enhancing services such as health and education. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) contends that a child who is off the birth registration radar, in comparison to a registered child, is a more attractive prospect to child traffickers, and is more likely to face discrimination and denial of access to basic life-enhancing services. Although birth registration alone does not secure access to vital social services, non-registration can further marginalise the people at the lower echelon of the society. The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that the birth registration rate in Vanuatu for 2005 was less than thirty percent. This paper examines the extent of non-registration in Vanuatu, in order to explore whether the opportunities offered by ICT do have a role in improving the provision of birth registration services in that country. It is anticipated that the outcome of this study can be extended to other developing countries in the Pacific.