Cameroon has intensified local and national efforts to expand child birth registration and secure legal identities for millions of undocumented children, Al Jazeera reported on Sunday. Supported by UNICEF and the Cameroonian government, local municipalities are working to address a critical child protection gap that leaves a significant portion of the youth population highly vulnerable. Under Cameroon civil status law, parents are required to register births within 90 days at no cost, after which the process becomes complicated, time-consuming, and expensive for low-income families.
According to official data from the Ministry of Basic Education, more than 1.5 million children, representing about 30 percent of all primary school students, are currently enrolled without birth certificates. The lack of proper documentation creates severe barriers for these children later in life, particularly when they attempt to advance to secondary education. Anna Enanga, head of the civil status bureau at the Tiko Council, noted that without an official birth certificate, students are barred from sitting for compulsory national public examinations and cannot obtain national identity cards.
Recent statistics reveal that out of 560,000 births recorded in Cameroonian health facilities in 2023, only 43.77 percent were officially registered. Alexis Mayang, a UNICEF child protection specialist based in Yaounde, told Al Jazeera that unregistered children are significantly harder to trace, monitor, or protect. Mayang emphasized that in conflict-affected regions, the total absence of legal identification sharply increases a child`s vulnerability to human trafficking, illegal exploitation, and forced recruitment into active armed groups.
To counter this widespread issue, local authorities launched a targeted nationwide campaign following the Mayors’ Forum on Birth Registration in April 2024. The initiative spans 360 councils and 14 cities across the country, and officials confirm that more than 17,000 children have been successfully registered since its inception. In the southwest region of Tiko, the local council partnered with traditional leaders to collect birth declarations from hard-to-reach rural communities. Meanwhile, the Garoua 2 municipality in northern Cameroon transitioned to digital civil status systems to issue certificates within minutes instead of using slow handwritten registers.
What remains unclear is how effectively these administrative reforms can overcome deeply rooted social barriers in remote villages. Child protection workers reported that some rural communities still hold harmful norms, believing that young girls do not require formal documentation or education, which increases the risks of early marriage. Globally, UNICEF estimates that 166 million children under the age of five remain unregistered, and Cameroonian officials stress that closing their national gap requires both systemic upgrades and cultural shifts.
