Sindh, Unicef launch digital birth registration project

The move is aimed at safeguarding children’s basic right to identity 

The Sindh local government department, in partnership with Unicef, launched a digital birth registration project on Friday to upscale the registration of children as a measure of safeguarding their basic right to identity. 

The project, which was initially piloted in Thatta during 2015, is now being extended to Badin and Naushero Feroze in the coming year, while planning has been done to expand it to Umerkot and Tharparkar by 2018. 

The project uses innovative methods to improve birth registration rates for children through the use of mobile phone technology. A pilot project was conducted in two union councils of Thatta in partnership with Unicef, a mobile phone company and the provincial departments of local government and health.

The intervention is said to have produced encouraging results, showing that 94 percent of births are now being registered in these union councils, within the first 60 days of birth in accordance with the law. “I am grateful for this opportunity to highlight that birth registration is a fundamental right for all children – the right to a name and legal identity,” said Unicef Representative to Pakistan Angela Kearney. 

“Unicef looks forward to a strengthened partnership with the Government of Sindh and Telenor to expand the digital birth registration pilot project across the target districts and facilitate the registration of two million unregistered children within 286 UCs.” 

The Sindh Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey conducted in 2014 by the Sindh government, with the technical support of Unicef, indicates that the rate of registered births for children under 5 stands at 29 percent in the province. Numbers are relatively low in the five districts that have been selected for upscaling, ranging from two to five percent in Thatta, Badin and Umerkot. 

Local Government Secretary Bakaullah Unnar reiterated his department’s commitment to bring every child within the system and urged the provincial line departments, NGOs and other stakeholders to come forward and exhibit their commitment to this issue of national importance. 

Birth registration is a fundamental right of all children as a legal proof of a child’s existence and identity. It is an accurate record of age which can help prevent child labour and child marriage, and protect children from being treated as adults for example by the justice system. 

In emergencies, children are at even greater risk if they are separated from their parents or caregivers and have no documentation. Pakistan, is a signatory to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and as per Article 7 of the convention, is responsible to undertake legal and administrative measures for a child to be registered immediately after birth.