The National Council of Women Societies, NCWS, has launched a one-day sensitization campaign on birth registration, emphasizing the importance of registering every child in Nigeria.
The event, held in Abuja, comes on the heels of the "Renewed Hope Initiative Project" to accelerate birth registration across the country, as introduced by Her Excellency, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, OON, CON.
The theme of the event, "Enhancing Birth Registration in Nigeria: Leveraging the NCWS Structure," reflects the organization’s commitment to using its vast grassroots network across the 36 states and 774 local government areas to promote birth registration and raise awareness at the community level.
Acting National President of NCWS, Mrs. Geraldine Ita Etuk,, in her welcome address, highlighted the importance of birth registration for securing a child's identity, citizenship, and future opportunities.
She said,”Birth registration is the first legal acknowledgment of a child's existence, essential for safeguarding their rights and privileges both now and in the future.
“Furthermore, accurate birth registration is crucial for national planning and development, as it provides the government with essential data to effectively plan for education, healthcare, and other social services.
“Unfortunately, Nigeria's birth registration rate remains low, leaving millions of children unregistered. This vulnerability exposes them to risks such as exploitation, child labor, and trafficking.
“As a leading women's organization, the NCWS is committed to advocating for the rights and welfare of women and children. We must leverage our structures across the 36 states and 774 local government areas to mobilize and educate communities about the importance of birth registration.
“Today's campaign aims to raise awareness about the significance of birth registration, identify the challenges hindering it, propose solutions, and strengthen partnerships with government agencies, international organizations, and relevant stakeholders.
“We must work together to increase awareness about birth registration, improve access to registration services, and enhance institutional capacity.
The Nigeria Population Commission, NPC, also underscored its commitment to ensuring that birth registration is tied to the generation of a National Identification Number (NIN).
Assistant Director Vital Signs Department, Nigeria Population Commission, Helen, Ugohi, said
“to ensure that at the point of registering every child, NIN is generated for the child to enhance the speedy collaboration, whereby the NIMC can sit on the National Population Commission application to work in synergy to ensure that every child is issued a NIN number alongside batch registration.
“They are mothers and then even if we don't give them much, the fact that they are aware of what we are doing at the Commission and then informing other women to go ahead to tell others about what NPC is all about and then ensuring that identity physically is given to these children because that is our commandment and we are passionate that every child before the age of five gets what's best certificate.
“We want them to go back at the grassroots as mothers to notify, to inform, to sensitize, to do all they can do to ensure that certificate and identity is given to this child. Even if we don't give them much, for them to just tell our people to notify them, to sensitize them on the importance for mothers to be aware and bring out their children for this registration.
“It's a major point of success for the Commission. Because if an identity is given to a child, basically the child knows this or what the person will be liable for health insurance and it will help copies of insecurity which is currently ongoing because the registration of every child is tied to a particular family tree.
“We know where that child is coming from. We know the origin of that child and then insecurity because demographic data will be easy. The force will have access to, well, from the headquarters there.
“And the new development now for the Commission is the plus force for digitization, who will be able to cope with the issue of double registration.
“Because first and foremost, the NIN of the child will be generated, which is unique to that child. And then that child's registration is tied to a particular mother. If you follow the process of registration, there is what we call birth order.
“A mother cannot have two children at the same time. So once the system indicates that this child is the first child, you can't register the child again. As simple as even biometrics of that child, as simple as even information about the age of the child after the birth of, the age of the mother after the birth of the child.
“These are issues, things that we brought out to be able to curb issue of double registration. And for those who would already have. our certificates. I said earlier that we are already working with the NMC to ensure that these certificates, we synergize them and synchronize the data to modify the NIN number to make it the same with what we have on our best registration database.
Also,UNICEF's Child Protection Manager, Mona Aika, also praised the NCWS for its pivotal role in promoting birth registration.
She said “We are targeting to register children under 5 for this year and under 1 for the newborns.
“Birth registration is the right of every child. It's the legal identity for each child. If you're not registered, you're very likely not to be able to access services. Through NPC's partnership with the Ministry of Education, they're also looking at entry into the education system with the birth registration.
“And if you don't have it, you may experience some challenges. So, it is important and we are supporting, as UNICEF, the government to ensure that children are registered in Nigeria to enjoy their rights to legal identity as they move towards the SDG 2030.”
On her part, A participant, President of the NCWS Kaduna State branch, Zainab Hassan, She stressed the need to engage community leaders such as Mai Unguwa (village heads) to help raise awareness on the benefits of registering children.
“So far we've been asked to go back to our various states to step down and also advocate on how to get our children to be registered, you know, so we're going back there, we'll go to our communities, we'll talk to our community leaders,”
“When a child is not registered, the government is unaware of their existence, limiting their access to social benefits," she added.
The NCWS campaign is expected to accelerate efforts to reach households and communities nationwide, ensuring that no child is left unregistered as Nigeria works towards achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.9 target.