FOR CREDIBLE BIRTH AND DEATH RECORDS
Registration of births and deaths is critical to planning and development
Recent disclosure by the National Population Commission (NPC) that many Nigerians are yet to be registered under the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) database brings to fore the challenge of statistics in the country. And as we join other countries to mark the World Statistics Day, we must recommit to the idea of effective birth registration system that is compulsory, universal, permanent and continuous and one that also guarantees the confidentiality of personal data. CRVS, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) is a system that registers all births and deaths, issues birth and death certificates, and compiles and disseminates vital statistics, including cause of death information. It also records marriages and divorces.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), many people born in Nigeria die without leaving a trace in any legal record or official statistics, such as births, deaths and other vital events in between. This lack of records renders many of our people poor, invisible and marginalised, exposing them to exploitations and human rights violations which in turn limits their access to socio-economic benefits. And to the extent that such registration is good both for the identity of every citizen and national planning, this is a call to action as we urge the relevant authorities to intensify efforts on the birth registration of children in our country without which there can be no real plan for their healthcare and education.
All over the world, birth and death certificates are critical to planning and development of data integral to the formulation of programmes relating to maternal and child health in any country. But what we have at our hands in Nigeria is an entrenched culture where births and deaths are under reported or unregistered. It is estimated that no fewer than 29 million children under the age of five in our country lack birth records. In similar vein, deaths are hardly recorded which has led to a situation where many financial crimes have been committed in the names of deceased persons.
In most developing countries, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “the onus is entirely on the family to register a birth or death. Even assuming they are aware of this obligation, it often requires substantial effort and expense and can take several weeks. This in part explains why so many births and deaths go unrecorded.” The situation is worse in Nigeria, yet the UNDP argues that “a birth certificate is a basic legal document that gives identity to a child, and automatically bestows a number of rights such as the right to health care, nationality, schooling, passport, property ownership, voting, formal employment, or access to banking services.”
Meanwhile, the accuracy of birth records in our country is also a problem. This arises basically because many children are born at home while the hospitals that are supposed to be registering new births are not living to their responsibility. Government can resolve this anomaly by designating local government officials to monitor and register births and deaths especially in the rural area. Beyond this, there should be a campaign to shore up support for birth registration and dissuade people from giving birth at home and for refusing to report new births. A reliable data generated on births provide the key indicators that will guide any country to provide robust health care service, allocate resources and universal education for its population.
On a day like this,created by the United Nations Statistical Commission to acknowledge the importance of data authenticity and credibility across the globe, authorities must do more on the registration of births and deaths in Nigeria.
