At a glance: Papua New Guinea

Real lives

An identity for Joe's 'bu bu' – birth registration in Papua New Guinea

PORT MORESBY, 10-7-2002 (UNICEF)

Alepa is a small village of over a hundred people set in the lush green hills of Rigo district in Papua New Guinea. A joint team, made up of UNICEF and Office of Civil Registration officials, are in Alepa to talk to people about the Rigo district birth registration programme. The villagers know nothing about the programme which was set up in August 2001. There are 46 children under 15 years in Alepa who spend a hazardous three hours each day negotiating the hilly terrain to get to the nearest school. The parents have no record of their children's birth, though they remember exactly when they were born. In fact, not a single person in the village has any record of their birth.

Word has evidently not reached Alepa village and the team acknowledges some of the reasons. The festivity-packed holiday season in Papua New Guinea stretches from late November to early February; imbued with election fever, it has brought most regular official activities to a virtual standstill. This situation is likely to continue until the middle of 2002.

The team realizes the urgent necessity for resources to support an information campaign about birth registration, which was only compulsory for Australians during the colonial period. Consequently, Papua New Guinea never developed a culture of civil registration of any kind. The country has only one registration office in the capital, Port Moresby.

Despite local ignorance about the birth registration programme, a discussion with the visiting team reveals that the villagers are aware of the benefits of birth registration. "For claiming lands, inheritance," says Mr. Aso Koi, a local subsistence farmer.

His wife, Judy Koi adds, "And for building a school. We will not know how big a school we should build if we don't know who (how many) is there and who (how many) will be ready for school each year."

Another villager, Mrs. Ilimo Paquito, adds, "We need birth registration but who will help us?" The assembled crowd seems to agree.

Back in the valley, the team travels on towards the coast to Kuikila. Here the story is very different. At the Kuikila health centre the team meets Mr. Joe Robana, a local community health worker (CHW) for nine years, who now assists the centre as a supervisor. When UNICEF helped launch the birth registration programme at the end of 2001, Joe took part in a training course with local-level government councillors on registration procedures.

The counsellors were supposed to instruct school teachers, nurses and others whose work brings them into contact with people, on the new registration procedures. They were also supposed to distribute, collect and deposit the forms with the district Administrator who would forward them to the registrar general's office in the capital, Port Moresby.

In the heat of election fever, Joe realized that the councillors' election duties would delay the registration process and took it upon himself to collect forms, selectively distributed them to the councillors and deposited them with the registrar general's office.

Speaking about the counsellors, Joe says, "If I give away all (forms), and some of them do not return (get re-elected) in the upcoming elections, they will waste the forms and not give them out. People will suffer." He adds, "I will distribute the rest after the results of the election." But Joe did much more than that.

Joe Robana worked tirelessly, often on his own time, patrolling villages for up to a week to visit individual families to explain the importance of the programme. He succeeded in contacting more than 100 families (over 400 people) to motivate them to register.

When asked why he thought birth registration was important, Joe was quick to list a number of reasons: "It can be used to establish the identity of a person for claims (benefits from an employer) when someone dies while still employed. It helps to tell us where we belong, which tribe, which language group. The population is growing and some day some people will want to go back to their tribes in villages. Then they will be rejected if they cannot prove where they belong to.

"The Government can use the birth registration information for planning and policy when population statistics are important. Birth registration will solve many personal problems. Single parent children may never track their father. I have a bu bu (grandchild); if her mother dies, my bu bu can go to the registration office to find out where she came from." At this point, Joe breaks down and looks away. Joe's grandchild, Hilda, was born after her mother was divorced. She never saw her father.

"Birth registration is important for everyone at all ages," Joe explains. He managed to get all four generations of his family, from the 81-year old great grandfather to the 18-month old great granddaughter, registered in one day. This meant interviewing his parents at length, talking to others in the locality and consulting available church records to come to the nearest possible date of birth for them. Joe pursued the same procedure to register himself and other members of his family.

The privilege of birth registration is something shared by only two to three per cent of the 5.13 million population of Papua New Guinea.

Joe's active involvement in the birth registration programme is a strategy that UNICEF supports in the two districts where the programme has been piloted. In these two districts, birth records for all children have been collected and registration has been applied for.

Although many people acknowledge the benefits of birth registration, some fear the data collected will be manipulated and they will be deprived of their rights to customary landholdings, while others think it is the same thing as an electoral roll. Clearly, UNICEF support for mass communication and information work is required to dispel such fears and encourage people to register in order to claim their basic rights.

The Government is aiming for universal coverage by 2020 but this will require substantial resources. If funds allow, UNICEF intends to help the Government take the current pilot project into a further 20 districts, one in each province by 2007.

It will be a challenge to create the decentralized system and infrastructure required for universal coverage but with political will, popular demand and the dedication of many more people like Joe Robana, universal birth registration can be achieved in Papua New Guinea. It is a matter of time.