Burkina Faso gives nameless women and children an identity

More than five million “invisible” people in Burkina Faso, mostly women and children may soon regain their existence and rights in a $3.3m programme to issue free birth certificates.

It is difficult to enforce laws against child trafficking, marriage and labour without proof of age, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Children also need certificates to attend school and to receive other government services. Some three million children, 60 per cent of whom are girls, were not listed in civil registries, according to a 2006 census.

Certificates are “a basic human right because they testify to the legal existence of the individual,” André Dembélé, head of the government’s committee on birth certificates, told United Nations news service, IRIN. He said the committee has asked “husbands to allow their wives to return to their birth villages” in order to be documented.

In Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries, families have 60 days after a birth to apply for a certificate, but the $1 cost discourages the poorest, according to the government. The cost was halved two years ago. But as Nadya Kassam, an aid worker helping roll out the programme said: "If you have to choose between a meal and a birth certificate you are going to choose food, it just makes sense."

But this year, registering children from birth to age 18 will be free of charge in an effort to get more parents in the West African nation to do so. Farmer and father of seven, Tiendrebeogo Antoine, says this initiative has come as a great relief to him. "A true citizen should have a birth certificate," he told the BBC World Service. "I have waited all this time because of lack of funds. When I heard about it I cycled all the way to the capital Ouagadougou from my village."

Dipama Zango Rosalie was seizing the opportunity to register her children. "I have been in this queue since 8 am to try to have birth certificates for three of my five children who do not yet have birth certificates," she explains. "A birth certificate is important because it allows you to enrol a child in school. It means a child can know its own identity, and can be used to vote during elections."

There are three million children in Burkina Faso, one in three of whom currently do not have a birth certificate.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children