70% of Nigerian children not registered – Commission

The National Population Commission (NPC) says that about 70 per cent of children born in Nigeria are not registered.

Musa Rashid, the director of the commission in Bauchi, made the disclosure on Thursday at an ongoing sensitisation workshop on Birth Registration in Bauchi.

The director explained that only 30 per cent of pregnant women visited health centers to deliver their babies, leaving the remaining 70 per cent having their babies at home.

“About 70 per cent of children in Nigeria are not registered, this is because just 30 per cent of pregnant women go to health facilities to give birth and that affects birth registration,” he said.

Mr Rashid decried that majority of unregistered children are drawn from the rural areas, owing to poor awareness about birth registration in the communities.

“Majority of people in the rural areas are unaware of the importance of birth registration, and this why we have many unregistered children in our rural communities.

“This is the rationale for this sensitisation workshop; to educate you media practitioners so you will in turn create awareness to improve birth registration in our communities,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop is organised by the Bauchi Field Office of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with NpopC.

The essence of the sensitisation workshop is to train journalists on ways to create awareness on the need for parents to register their children at births.

NAN also reports that the workshop had participants from Plateau, Gombe and Bauchi states.

(NAN)