The BRAVO! programme of the Community of Sant'Egidio was launched in 2018 to address the problem of "invisible children" in 38 municipalities in the Central-West region of Burkina Faso. It has provided birth registration at the civil registry, thanks to the support of the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation.
Since then more than 84,000 newborn and more than 20,000 children over 5 years have been registered through the 222 registration offices opened in health centres by the BRAVO! programme. Birth registration is a global issue: out of 125 million new born across the world every year, 48 million go unregistered. In the Centre-West region of Burkina Faso only 62% of children aged 0-4 years had a birth certificate before the project started. Most of registrations were done through a late procedure, which is expensive and leaves children at risk of exploitation, trafficking and abuse.
On the basis of this consideration, BRAVO! Programme has succeeded in facilitating the registration of children attending schools, promoting both the registration of babies at birth and the late registration of children attending primary schools.
"Distance is one of the main problems preventing families from registering their children," says Colette Guiebré of Sant'Egidio, national head of the BRAVO! programme stressing the importance of creating registration offices in village health centres within easy reach.
The project has provided training for civil registrars and also for nurses and health workers to advise and refer families to birth registration services. These efforts resulted in 71% of newborns being reached and registered at the very moment of birth. This has contributed to reducing the phenomenon of 'invisible children', one of the main causes of human trafficking and child exploitation.
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