Passport to a better future in AngolaJuanita was born in 1987, in a small village near Katchiungo, in Angola’s Huambo province. She never met her father but knows that he was killed by a landmine. Her only brother was taken by guerillas when she was six years old. She never attended school nor had the opportunity to play with other children. She and her mother had to move frequently from place to place, often in hiding, to avoid attacks from armed militia. One day soldiers came to their hut demanding food and sex from her mother. When she refused, the soldiers killed her in front of the young Juanita. The hut was set on fire and she was forced to leave with the soldiers. She thinks she was seven years old when all this happened. Violence became part of her everyday life as she watched people being beaten, tortured and killed. She was forced to wash, cook and carry for the soldiers. On many occasions the group she was with was forced to take part in direct combat or had to take cover from air raids. She had two babies with soldiers: one of them died at birth, the second one is alive but frequently sick. The first school Juanita ever saw was at the internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp in Moxico province, where she now lives in a more peaceful existence than she has ever known..On the second day of her arrival at the camp, she was taken to the civil registration office (conservatória) in Luena, the capital of Moxico province, where she was officially registered as an Angolan citizen. She was asked to give her name and the name of her baby. When asked for the name of the baby’s father, she gave no answer as she doesn’t know who the father is. Juanita’s story is typical of many girls in Angola, where armed conflict has had a dramatic impact on the lives of children and their families. Many Angolan children grow up without being registered as a result of war, displacement, breakdown in services and a highly bureaucratized and archaic system of birth registration.. More than 3 million children were not registered at birth and are consequently excluded from access to basic rights and services. The Ministry of Justice estimates that only 5 per cent of births were registered in 2000. In 1997-1998, UNICEF began working with the Ministry of Justice to raise awareness about children’s right to an identity. A free birth registration campaign started and successfully registered more than 650,000 children, but the resumption of the war at the end of 1998 put an end to the programme. A new birth registration campaign was developed in 2001 targeting 3 million children nationwide. A change in legislation and a more progressive system for birth registration encouraged the Catholic and Methodist churches to join the campaign. More than 317 people were trained as “brigadistas” to perform birth registration in 35 sites based in churches in Luanda and its outskirts, while mobile teams organized outreach missions to more remote communities. Working in close contact with local conservatórias, the church teams succeeded in registering 29,161 children in a month, managing to double the average registered by government officers. By the end of the seven-month campaign in February 2002, the total number of children registered nationwide was 440,806. UNICEF provided the training and registration documents required for over half a million people for the first stage of the campaign. In addition, UNICEF supplied motorbikes, bicycles and communication equipment for outreach missions. UNICEF also helped develop the birth registration public information campaign using the mass media, public forums, theatre, and even networks such as the boy scouts which distributed a special issue of UNICEF Angola’s monthly publications – Epá and Xé. The recent ending of hostilities in Angola has increased the demand for birth registration, especially in areas which were previously inaccessible during the conflict. At the end of March, the Ministry of Justice finally secured almost US$400,000 from the state budget, to be used primarily to expand the programme in three provinces and provide training, transport, salaries and logistical support for the Catholic church and conservatórias in each province. Despite the progress to date, birth registration is not yet routine in hospitals, primary schools or in women’s groups. UNICEF’s work in securing this basic right for all children in Angola has only just begun.
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