Josephine is the best student in the Kaolack region of Senegal. However, because her parents couldn’t afford to buy her a birth certificate she was ineligible to take the secondary school entrance exam. As a result, it appeared her education would end with the completion of primary school. However, ELEVEate provided Josephine with her birth certificate so she was able to continue going to school and keep alive her dream of being a teacher after graduating from secondary school. She said that “having a birth certificate has enabled me to enroll in school, to have an identity card, which makes me part of society, and all of this makes it possible for me to look forward to the future.”

There are 50 million children, just like Josephine, born each year who do not receive a birth certificate. Thus, 40% of the children born worldwide each year suffer the indignities associated with being unregistered. The world has already decided that birth registration is a human right according to both the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Being registered gives children more benefits than just citizenship. A birth certificate gives children access to health care, education and an identity card, which they need in order to enter the formal labor market. Birth registration also helps protect children from becoming the victims of child labor and human trafficking. Moreover, a birth certificate improves the child’s status within their family and community as well as improving their self-efficacy.

The International Birth Registration Day will focus the world’s attention on the importance of birth registration. It will create a foundation for advocacy to both ensure that every child obtains the rights they deserve as citizens and positions them to become powerful agents of change within their own families and communities.

Please sign the petition asking the United Nations Secretary-General to create an International Birth Registration Day.