Menu

News & Events

18 Aug 2018
Loss of a child rights champion
TAGS

(Newsletter: CRVS Insight August 2018)

By now, everyone reading this article is already aware that former Secretary-General Kofi Annan passed away on 18 August 2018 in Bern, Switzerland. However, what readers may not know, or immediately recall, is that Mr. Annan was an early supporter of birth registration as a central means for protecting children. Specifically, he made his views clear in the 2001 publication of We the Children, by articulating that:

"During the 1990s, there was growing awareness of the importance of prompt birth registration as an essential means of protecting a child’s right to identity, as well as respect for other child rights. Failure to register births promptly has been linked to the trafficking of babies. The lack of a birth certificate may prevent a child from receiving health care, nutritional supplements and social assistance, and from being enrolled in school. Later in childhood, identity documents help protect children against early marriage, child labour, premature enlistment in the armed forces or, if accused of a crime, prosecution as an adult".

According to UNICEF, at the time of publication, We the Children was considered “a landmark review of the progress made in meeting the commitments of the 1990 World Summit for Children”. The historical importance of this publication is amplified when considering that the 1990 Summit was, also at the time, the “largest gathering of world leaders in history” and was the driving force behind national commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Notably, the CRC is still the most widely adopted international human rights instrument.

With that in mind, the CRVS team in the Statistics Division of UN ESCAP wanted to take this opportunity to remind readers of Mr. Annan's contributions to our collective goals of protecting children by highlighting his foresight on this important issue, as well as his tireless work on behalf of human rights everywhere. 

More News

27 September 2024

Join the Measuring Adult Mortality Community of Practice (MAM-CoP) on Monday 30 September 2024 for…

27 September 2024

Our community newsletter puts a spotlight on people who have gone above and beyond in their efforts…

27 September 2024

The Pacific Community (SPC) released a report on Assessment, Analysis and Redesign of the CRVS…

27 September 2024

A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reveals an immanent gender…

27 September 2024

A new international standard for how to test for equitability and bias in biometric systems has…

27 September 2024

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Target 16.9 focuses on providing legal identity for all,…

27 September 2024

ESCAP's Statistics Division has released a Stats Brief on Understanding and Improving Adult…

27 September 2024

A recently published research article documents the sharp improvement in on-time birth registration…

27 September 2024

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Indonesia, in partnership with the…

27 September 2024

The CRVS Applied Research Training (CART) initiative, launched in March 2024, aims to enhance Civil…