49. Also, SOS Children9 has already launched a civil registration programme in Bujumbura wish
the following objectives:
(i) To regularize the vital statistics by the systematic registration of street children whose births
have never been recorded at the civil status level;
(ii) (Sensitise families on the importance of birth registration through the administration;
(iii) Give every street child their identity to preserve their rights and their future.
50. As a first step, the project ensured the registration of 251 children in 8 homes managed by the
Humanitarian Action for the Protection and Development of Children (OPDE) as part of its
reintegration missions of street children. Subsequently, an awareness campaign on the importance
of birth registration was conducted in three areas of Bujumbura City Council selected as pilot sites:
Kamenge, Kinama, and Buterere. The three localities are very poor entities from which most of the
street children of the capital come from
51. In 2012, more than 115,000 Burundian children whose births were not registered had access to a
birth certificate as part of a free late registration campaign organised from 16 March 2012 in 4
municipalities of Kirundo Province and 4 of Muyinga Province. This two-month campaign
organised by the Ministry of the Interior in collaboration with the Organisation Geste Humanitaire
and with the technical and financial support of UNICEF, took place until May 15, 2012 in the
Municipalities of Kirundo, Busoni, Vumbi and Bugabira (Province of Kirundo), as well as in the
municipalities of Muyinga, Giteranyi, Gasorwe and Butihinda (Muyinga Province).
52. The 2012 campaign follows the campaign that was organised in 2010 in 24 communes of
Bujumbura and Bujumbura Mairie Provinces, which had provided birth certificates to 56,700
children out of a total estimate of some 100,000 unregistered children in these communities. The
total number of unregistered children in the eight municipalities of Muyinga and Kirundo reached
by the 2012 campaign was estimated at approximately 177,000 children.
53. Regular registration continues as usual. However, civil status services suffer from a lack of
computerised data. Nevertheless, the recommendation of the African Ministers in charge of the civil
status at the meeting held in Durban in South Africa, set up a system of collection of vital statistics
and which propelled Burundi to the first place among the Francophone African countries. To this
end, an ad hoc National Steering Committee chaired by His Excellency the First Vice-President of
the Republic has been operational since 2014.
54. It should be noted that, according to the 2010 DHS10, the birth registration percentage of
children under 2 is 70% while that of children aged 2 to 4 is 78.7. With regard to the dwelling place,
the urban area which comes in first place with 86.6% and secondly the rural area with 74.1% of
which 75.4 male and 74.9 female.
9
The mission of the organisation is to raise awareness on birth registration
10
EDS 2010 page 43 to 44.
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