inaccessible) and children risk growing up completely undocumented and
therefore at risk of statelessness.
24. Thus, the Committee recommends the State Party to speed up the process
of modernizing the civil registration system and allocate sufficient funds for
strengthening birth registration initiatives, with a particular focus in rural
settings. The Committee would also like to note that registration facilities,
especially in rural and remote areas, need to have adequate capacity to
meet needs. They need to be decentralized and accessible to communities.
The State Party should ensure that children without birth certificates have
full access to education, health, and other social services. The Committee
also recommends the State Party to promote non-punitive mechanisms for
late registration, including the possibility of removing fees and penalties
attached to birth registration. Moreover, the State Party should ensure that
adequate training is provided to staff responsible for various aspects of the
civil registration and vital statistics systems.
25. The Committee would also like to recommend the Government of Senegal
to produce a situation analysis on mapping which group of children are not
registered and why they are not registered, and
26. Further, the Committee recommends the State Party to take into account
General Comment No.2 on Article 6 of the Charter for the implementation
and full realization of children’s right to name, nationality and birth
registration.
Freedom of expression, access to appropriate information, freedom of
thought, conscience and religion
27. The Committee recommends the State Party to provide the necessary
information, including information relating to children’s rights under the
Charter, to children in all areas in their own language using all feasible
mediums of communication.
E. Education, leisure and cultural activities
28. The committee notes that the State Party guarantees access to education
for all children and education is compulsory and free up to the age of 16.
The Committee welcomes the Government of Senegal’s commitment to
expand provision of primary and secondary education to more young
people, including by allocating over 20 percent of its national budget to
education, and encourages the Government to strengthen and continue
improving access and quality of education to all children.
29. The committee is, however, concerned about;
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