Four generations and one birth certificate
My daughter will be protected from child marriage now I have her birth certificate
My name is Alum Proscovia. I am 24 years old. I work as a teacher in a pre-school. I have one daughter named Nakol. She is very playful. She likes to imitate me when I am washing clothes and cooking for my family.
We live here together in Lopelpel village, in north-east Uganda. There is my grandmother, my mother, my daughter and me. We are four generations of women.
Nakol is the only one of us whose birth has been registered with the government. Data collectors came to our home and recorded her name and date of birth in a big book. A few months later, the chief from our village brought me this birth notification card. It says the day Nakol was born.
I need the card to enrol Nakol in school. And when I take her for medical treatment, it will help. The chief also told me that if anyone ever tried to marry Nakol before she had grown up, I could use the card to prove she was still a young girl below the age of 18 years.
The only thing is, Nakol’s birth registration card has been damaged. I was keeping it in a box and termites got to it. I will apply to another registration card to replace this one.
Nakol is very smart. She can already count to 10 in English. Because she has a birth registration card, she’ll have the chance to get a good job. I hope she becomes a nurse.
The European Union and UNICEF last year announced a grant worth 6 million EURO to support a substantial increase in birth registration in Uganda and three other African countries.
The grant, which is being managed by UNICEF, is designed to substantially increase the rate of registration, which until recent years was too low. Birth registration rates for children under 5 in Uganda have risen from 30 per cent in 2011 to an estimated 69 per cent at the end of 2016.
The European Union grant builds on evidence that shows that rapid gains are made when birth registration is linked to the health sector, when births are recorded in the health facilities where they occur.
