Cameroon: Over 3 million children without birth certificates

By Stephen TADAHA

Having a birth certificate is a fundamental right but in Cameroon, an estimated 76 000, class six pupils, ( final year in primary school) lack the important document, with more than 3.3 million children in the country still seeking to have their birth certificates. About 2 million of this figure are of school-going age.

The situation has pushed many children to drop out of school given that the document is required to access secondary schools. These children end up being street children, drug addicts, and gangsters.

Several thousands of birth certificates were lost or destroyed in Cameroon’s conflict zones which so far has displaced an estimated 750,000 people in English-speaking regions, most of them women and children.

To resolve the issue, the government of Cameroon in collaboration with the World Bank under the Cameroon Education Reform Support Project (PAREC), has promised to provide birth certificates to final-year primary school pupils before the start of official exams this year.

The Minister of Basic Education, Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, recently instructed Regional Delegates, to take necessary measures that will facilitate the establishment and issuance of the documents to the children concerned before the start of the 2024 official exams.

It was revealed that an estimated 76,000 final-year pupils lack birth certificates in Cameroon. This acted as a factor for school dropouts, thus hindering the country’s objective of attaining a 100% primary education completion rate in its universal primary education goals.

Basic education officials in various regions were therefore tasked herefore to sensitize parents and contact administrative, municipal, judicial, and health authorities to facilitate the establishment and issuance of birth certificates to children.

In Cameroon, for children to continue with their education after the primary level, they must present their birth certificates.