First-ever Birth Registration Week activity launched

The programme focuses on unregistered children in Chin State, Mon State and Magway Region, building awareness of the importance of birth registration and increasing demand. Free birth certificates are being issued to unregistered children under 5 in a bid to promote children’s rights. Birth certificates are often associated with appropriate protection. 

It is a collaborative effort by the government ministries of Immigration and Population, National Planning and Economic Development, Health, and Home Affairs, and Unicef, with financial support from the European Union. 

“We are now implementing the Birth Registration Week in Myanmar, with the aim of strengthening the birth registration system at every level - central, sub-national, regional and state level.  The long term aim is to achieve a comprehensive civil registration system,” said Win Myint, the deputy minister for Immigration and Population.

“Free and universal birth registration is the first right of the child and a stepping stone to enjoy other rights such as the right to health, education and protection. UNICEF congratulates the Myanmar government for this effort to provide birth certificates to previously unregistered children in the country”, declared Bertrand Bainvel, Unicef Representative to Myanmar.

Unicef estimated that 35 per cent of children in Myanmar, of which several parts of the country suffer from armed conflicts in the past decades, are unregistered.