Children who lack formal documentation, especially their birth certificate, are at the highest risk of modern slavery. Globally, over 200 million children under 5 don’t have a birth certificate. There are 150 million unregistered children and 55 million children whose births are reported as registered but lack proof in the form of a birth certificate. Of the 150 million unregistered children worldwide, more than half (90 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa (UNICEF, 2024).

A recent UN report, which researched the issue in Kenya, warned that children, and adults, without documentation are being deprived of basic services. In particular they are denied their access to education, which pushes them into child marriage and/or informal employment.

A lack of documentation is a common problem for rural families. Most children are born at home – due to the cost and distance to travel to a facility for an assisted birth. If a child is born at a clinic they receive a birth notification, which assists the process of birth registration. If a child is born at home, parents often don’t know the implications of their child not having a birth certificate, and the issue is compounded by poor literacy skills.  In our Baringo partner school communities, there are a high number of families whose children don’t have a birth certificate.

In Kenyan Government schools, children need to present their birth certificate to register for the national primary school examinations. It causes children to drop out of school. By law, schools and the local government should investigate children absent from school, and follow up on dropout cases — but in reality cases go unchecked. In Baringo, pastoralist families, on the move for food and water, can go undetected in the system

Children without a birth certificate are vulnerable to child rights violations. Likely to engage in child labour, it means that the cycle of poverty continues in lower-income families.
According to the UN report children as young as seven years old, are forced into work due to poverty – vulnerable to physical and emotional abuse.

Another critical reason is that a birth certificate is needed for the child to be formally enrolled in the Government’s NAMIS system for education. In Kenya the NAMIS system is used to calculate and disburse annual funding for schools. A school receives equivalent to $17 per primary-age child, based on the number of children in NAMIS*.

Every child needs formal identification. It is an essential foundation to realise UN SDG Target 8.7: eradicating forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking, and child labor globally.

So They Can is urgently seeking to mobilise $11,500 so that we can support 1,280 families in Baringo to access their child’s birth certificate. Can you help us? Please donate now.

*The Government of Kenya does not provide funding for pre-primary children.