The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), National Population Commission (NPC) and the Cross River Government have deplored the low birth registration in the state.
They made their position known in Calabar during a two-day stakeholders’ engagement and development of macro-policy and action plans on collaborative and improved birth registration service delivery in the state.
Brainstorming on the issue, the stakeholders pleaded for all hands to be on deck to address the identifiable lapses.
The UNICEF Chief Field Officer, Enugu, Ibrahim Contel said data showed that the state was way behind in child capturing at birth.
According to him, when a child is not registered at birth, it is as good as not existing, and by so doing, the child has been deprived of his/her rights.
On his part, the State NPC Director, Billy Eteng, said the commission decided to go into collaboration with UNICEF and relevant stakeholders due to high level of ignorance on birth registration.
Also speaking, the state’s Solicitor-General and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Peter Bassey, linked Nigeria’s problem to lack of application of statistics to governance that had, according to him, affected the nation’s budgeting system.
The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Betta Edu, charged health workers to ensure that every child was registered at birth.
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