This is pretty common actually around the world. For example, most people I met out in the country who had never been to school in India and Nepal also didn't have birth certificates or passports and couldn't read and couldn't write anything. So, actually I'm not surprised there are aboriginal people not registered either in Australia because of what I have already seen.
Thousands
of Aboriginal children are likely to have no official identity in
Western Australia because they have no birth documents, a new study has
found. The study, published in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Public …
Thousands of Aboriginal
children are likely to have no official identity in Western Australia
because they have no birth documents, a new study has found.
The study, published in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health on Monday, has found that one in five aboriginal children have not been given birth certificates.
As a result, 4,628 births to Aboriginal mothers weren't recorded in the registry in the 16 years from 1996 to 2012. With documentation comes the ability to access services. University of Sydney lead author Alison Gibberd said the fault was with the system.
"In
its current form, Western Australia's birth registration system doesn't
ensure that all children have registered births," Gibberd.
"Australia
is a signatory to several international conventions to ensure that all
children have the right to be registered immediately after birth, but an
unacceptably high number of Aboriginal children don't achieve this
right."
The research indicates that kids born to teenage mothers
were five times more likely to remain unregistered than those born to
mothers over 30.
It also says mothers who were themselves unregistered were three times more likely to have an unregistered child.
Western
Australia has the third highest Aborigine population in the country,
with 88,270 people identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander,
according to 2011 census data.
The communities are considered the
most disadvantaged in Australia, suffering higher rates of imprisonment,
unemployment, illness and child mortality. Between 1980 and 2010, 4,628 indigenous children were not recorded at birth in Western Australia. (file photo)Sandra
Eades, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute Aboriginal health leader,
said there are clearly barriers stopping Aboriginal families from
registering their child.
Around 290 million children do not
possess a birth certificate all around the world, according to the
United Nations children's agency UNICEF.
Without a birth
certificate,one will face social disadvantage later in life, including
difficulties in possessing a passport, opening a bank account, enrolling
in university or finding employment.
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