?Invisible children more vulnerable to trafficking and abuse

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Millions of children in developing countries are at greater risk of being trafficked, abducted or abused because they do not exist on government records, warns child rights organisation Plan International. As the world marks the International Missing Children’s Day, it is estimated that globally 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. Plan, as part of its Universal Birth Registration campaign, is calling for every child in the world to be registered as an effective prevention tool to tackle child trafficking and abuse. Every year, 51 million children or one in every three births across the world go unregistered. Majority of unrecorded births are from countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The unregistered children have no legal existence; and therefore little or no recourse to basic rights such as education and healthcare. Plan’s experience of dealing with missing children and human trafficking in countries like Pakistan and Nepal shows that a proper form of identity can act as a safeguard. Nadya Kassam, Plan’s Head of Global Advocacy said: “Unregistered children remain ‘invisible’ to the authorities and as a result are more vulnerable to human rights violations. Traffickers can easily smuggle children without records across borders by forging their age and identity. We cannot even accurately estimate the scale of this crime as thousands of missing children do not even exist in government estimates.” Since 2005, Plan’s birth registration campaign has facilitated registration of over 40 million people across 32 countries, most of them children. The campaign has helped to improve laws in 10 countries enabling access to registration for an additional estimated 153 million people. The children’s charity is lobbying governments in developing countries, especially those with poor track record in birth registration, to actively include birth registration as part of their commitment to child rights. “In India alone, more than 8 million children join the unregistered population every year and thousands go missing. This must change. Registration makes governments account for every child,” added Nadya.     Plan through its global campaign has also highlighted that birth registration is key to accessing medical care, enrolling at school, inheriting property, preventing child exploitation and finding employment. It is a proof of identity and allows people to claim their basic rights. Learn more about Plan’s UBR campaign.   Nadya Kassam, Plan’s Head of Global Advocacy is available for media interviews.   Please contact:  Davinder Kumar Press Officer, Plan International Headquarters (UK) Tel:+44 (0) 1483733328 Mob: +44(0) 7739326164 davinder.kumar@plan-international.org   Editor’s notes: The International Labour Organisation estimates that around 246 million children are currently involved in child labour worldwide. Of these, 179 million are exposed to the worst forms of child labour. Establishing a legal minimum age for work is an important first step but, without an effective birth registration system to back it up, it is difficult for government agencies acting to eliminate such practices to prove how old a child is. In many countries, sexual relations with a girl under 16, with or without her consent, are regarded as rape. Yet, without a birth certificate to confirm a girl's age and to prove she is underage, it is hard to obtain a conviction. A research by Plan in Nepal has revealed that police were unwilling to trace a girl known to have been trafficked because she had no means of proving her age, nationality or even her existence. There are currently an estimated 200,000 women and girls missing from Nepal, believed to have been trafficked to India. A Plan commissioned survey of children in rural schools in Ghana found that many children – even literate ones – freely admitted that they did not know their age. Eighty per cent of those who did give their age were found to be incorrect when their answer was compared to the date of birth given in the school register, which also tended to be incomplete.