Midwives and nurses work to ensure that 'every child has a right to a name and a nationality': the International Confederation of Midwives and International Council of Nurses have launched a joint campaign to help children achieve their human rights--from birth.

The picture above shows a newborn baby with a good start in life--alive, cared for and recorded.

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Midwives and nurses the world over are aware that very many babies do not have the same good luck, but for a number of reasons go unrecorded and unregistered. They may be well loved and cared for within the family, but if the family structure is broken or dispersed, particularly in situations of war or civil unrest, then the difficulties start. The child's name, age and relatives may not be known. Health and education needs are more difficult to assess, opportunities for interventions such as inmunisation may be missed and--on top of the devastating emotional loss of parents, siblings and home the child suffers the lack of an official identity.

The ICM and International Council of Nurses have identified this issue as one where both midwives and nurses, especially those working with children and families, may have a significant part to play. Encouraging new parents to remember birth registration; assisting in the process if family members are not literate; explaining the advantages of registration; ensuring that babies whose parents have died are named and registered; working in orphanages or refugee camps to help re-unite family members and establish a child's identity--these are among the activities that contribute to the holistic care of a child, and help to invest in his or her future.

The epidemic of non-registration

Almost two-fifths of the world's children are born without being registered. In 2000, approximately 50 million babies born ha different parts of the world did not receive official identities because they were not registered. Unregistered children are vulnerable to exploitation of even kind--they are marginalised from birth, as there is no official recognition of their existence.

As with many other epidemics, the problem exists in every country but is greater where families are more likely to be poor, or disadvantaged socially or educationally. Seventy percent of the unregistered births worldwide are estimated to be ha sub-saharan Africa and south and south-east Asia.

International agreement on need for birth registration

Registration of babies at birth is mandated by Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 162 countries in 1989.

The convention stipulates that,

'each child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name (and) the right...