KABUL (SW) – The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called for the need to ensure legal identity of children, particularly those affected and displaced by war, poverty and other constraints.
It has said in a report that despite the fact that laws oblige different institutions such as family and health institutions to register child’s identity upon birth, it is an unfortunate fact that about 58% of children under the age of fifteen are not registered in the country.
It said that the non-registered (invisible) children are not the only children lacking legal identity. “There are many incidents’ that can impact a child’s identity complicating their identification and right to have their identifiable personal data and social relationship. Abandonment of children by their parents and children affected by armed conflict are the other two common causes of a child’s lack of legal identity in the country”, said the AIHRC.
The rights group has stressed that the right to identity is one of the basic rights of individuals. “This right protects an individual’s significant personal and identifiable attributes and social relationships. The right to identity “encompasses relatively static personal attributes, such as biographical data and physical traits, [and] it also extends to an individual’s outward expression and the establishment of a web of significant social relations, such as ties to family members, cultures, or religion.”
The right to identity includes an individual’s name, personal relationship data, such as father’s name and family name, cultural identity, and social relationship, among others.
As per the AIHRC report, given the situation of the country, the situation of children is deteriorating day by day and the number of vulnerable children and those at risk is increasing. “In addition to this issue, there is a group of children in government and non-governmental orphanages who do not have an ID card. A group of these children, unfortunately, do not have a parent and relatives, however, another group of them have relatives, but their relatives do not come to the orphanages to visit the children”, said the AIHRC.
Recently, the AIHRC’s Children’s Rights Unit monitored public and private orphanages in 25 provinces of the country and recognized children without legal identity. Most of these children were in Herat province. Eleven people were identified in Kabul, eight in Balkh, one in Ghazni, one in Samangan, two in Sar-e Pol, two in Kandahar and three in Nangarhar provinces. A total of 67 children, including 53 boys and 14 girls, live in orphanages.
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