Millions of Indian children without birth certicates

Bharatpur, Rajasthan, June 27 (UNI) Millions of Indian children do not possess birth registration certificates.

Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that a child should be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right to a name and the right to acquire a nationality.

Statistics indicate that India has the largest number of unregistered children in the world. There are about 72,000 births per day in India, but less than 57 per cent of all births and 51 per cent of deaths get registered. Only a small fraction of these ever receive a birth certificate.

The startling fact was discussed here at the two-day National workshop on Child Rights for the media. Starting from today, the workshop aims to bring to the notice of the media the difficult circumstances faced by children all over the country as well as that of NGOs in implementing programmes for their welfare.

Plan- India, an NGO, which is working with the office of the Registrar General of Births and Deaths (GOI) and UNICEF, informed the journalists about the ramifications, that the issue of birth registration holds with regard to implementing government legislations on number of schools, vaccination of children, etc.

Dipa Sinha, daughter of Magasaysay awardee Shanta Sinha of MV Foundation, said while Child Labour was banned in India in 1986, it hasn't come to an agreement on the definition of the phrase.

The practice of Child Labour in almost every house in Firozabad was discussed in detail by Manas Bhattacharya of DISHA. He informed the journalists that though children were banned from working at the glass bangles factories, they still worked from their homes and earned as little as Rs 2 for leveling 312 bangles commonly known as 'jhalai'.

Half of the world's malnourished children are found in the Indian Sub-continent with the rates in India and Pakistan being much higher than in Sub-Saharan Africa on average, Abhijeet Nirmal, Programme Officer with Haq: Centre for Child Rights, New Delhi, said. Quoting the District Level Rapid Household Survey (DLHS) 2002-05 statistics, he said over 66 per cent of children, below 6 yrs of age are moderately under nourished while 90 per cent pre-school children, adolescent girls and pregnant women have anaemia.

Issues also ranged from child soldiers in Salwa Judum, Buddhia, children in conflict with law, refugees, child trafficking during Tsunami to the trauma suffered by children during CBSE and ICSE Board exams.

UNI PR RP KN2008