Archbishop Tutu Launches Universal Birth Registration to Defend Basic Human Rights

The world renowned human rights advocator, South African Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has launched a global campaign in collaboration with the British aid agency, Plan, to register all new born babies at the UN headquarters in New York. The movement aims to protect the basic human rights of all people to receive education and health care regardless of their gender, race, religion or social status.

The concern over the registration of new-borns was raised by the latest UNICEF figures which show that over 48 million births each year (36% of births worldwide) are not registered and the vast majority are in developing countries.

A UK-based international children's aid agency, Plan, released a 50-page report titled "Universal Birth Registration - a Universal Responsibility". It even estimates that the number of children without birth certificates across the world exceed 500 million.

These children usually find difficulty getting access to education, health care and have problems exercising their civil rights such as voting later in their lives.

"It is, in a very real sense, a matter of life and death," Archbishop Tutu said. "The unregistered child is a non-entity. The unregistered child does not exist. How can we live with the knowledge that we could have made a difference?"

Thomas Miller, former U.S. ambassador to Greece and Plan's new chief executive said, "Governments worldwide are failing the world's children, as millions of youngsters without a birth certificate find it very difficult to prove their age or nationality."

"And parents whose children go missing, during disasters like the tsunami or because they are abducted by traffickers, may even be unable to get help with tracing their sons or daughters because they cannot prove the age of their children - or in many cases that their children even exist," he continued.

Currently, Plan is working with local partners in over 40 countries to boost the rates of child registration through the campaign named Write Me Down, Miller said.

Archbishop Tutu urged all countries to join the campaign to ensure that every child in the world is registered and has an identity.

"I never give up," he said. "I believe human beings are fundamentally good and that when people want to do good, they will do the right thing."

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 imposed an obligation on countries to register every child immediately after birth. Nowadays, almost all countries in the world have ratified the convention except USA and Somalia.