Registering births of people who aren’t in the system

Christine Norton

And though we are informed that the birth and names of the boys will soon be recorded by the Vital Statistics Unit, strangely enough many parents fail to register their children into the system. That is why UNICEF recently teamed up with the Vital Statistics Unit to open temporary centers in Toledo, Stann Creek and Corozal. Now the registration drive is coming to the Belize District. According to Christine Norton, UNICEF’s Country Representative in Belize, five centers will be opened in Belize City during the next few days.

Christine Norton, Country Representative, UNICEF

“We will start now in Belize City and particularly focus on South Side. So tomorrow, the twenty-ninth, thirtieth, and thirty-first, we will begin the process on South Side and from nine to five p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday and then on Friday, we will be out there from nine to one. We will be located at five centers on South Side. One is the Y.M.C.A., the other is the Samuel Haynes Institute of Excellence, we will also be at Sister Clara Mohammed Muslim School and we will have as well a possibility of having people register at where they usually do register; the Vital Statistics Office on Gabourel Lane. We also will be at the Youth for Future Center. So we have many centers throughout South Side that will facilitate registration. I think the important thing is to ask people to come out and this is really what we are trying to do now—to ask people to come out. Those who haven’t registered their children, we are trying to reach children between the ages of zero and seventeen-eighteen years old; however, we have helped children a little older than that. But our focus is will be those young kids who haven’t been registered.”

Jose Sanchez

“One would assume, you have a child, you have a baby, you register your child. What has your research shown in the areas that you have carried out this program before?”

Christine Norton.

“Yes it is interesting that you asked that question because the fact people, generally, have a desire to register their child and some people have indicated to us that there are different factors that stand in the way of registration. Some have thought that they weren’t ready to register in that they didn’t have a name for the child for instance when they arrived at the hospital; some it was just a question of distance; for others it is a question of not being able to have their partner join them at point of registration—the husband or so join them. Basically, I think it is important for people to realize that the ideal time to register a child is immediately as that child is born and so we need somehow to prepare ourselves to do that including having a name and pitting the plans in place. I think the other issue is that also for people to understand that not registering a child, keeps a child somehow out of the system.”

Norton says that proof of birth in the country is needed to facilitate the process.