Homelessness: Children

Department for International Development written question – answered at on 19 May 2020.

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Photo of Baroness Sheehan Baroness Sheehan Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (International Development)

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, through the UN, to reinforce the need for formal registration documents for each child so that in times of crisis children with no fixed household can be identified.

Photo of Baroness Sugg Baroness Sugg The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

The Government is committed to supporting efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 which aims to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030. The Government continues to advocate for the issuance of civil documentation in specific post-conflict countries through UN mechanisms, including the Security Council Working Group for Children and Armed Conflict.

Last year DFID approved a four-year £15 million Digital Identity as an Enabler for Development programme to support the World Bank Group’s Identification for Development initiative to implement trusted, secure, universal and inclusive digital Identification and civil registration systems from birth to death in over 40 countries.

Children on the Move is a DFID-funded 3-year programme (2017-2020) working with UNICEF to help children on the move in Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. In Somalia the work includes providing children with a legal identity, without which they are at a greater risk of family separation, trafficking and illegal adoption. In 2019, 101,300 children were provided with legal identity documents including a birth certificate.

As well as this, some of the £30 million which DFID is providing to the Global Financing Facility (GFF) supports birth registration in DRC, Kenya, Liberia, Rwanda and Uganda.

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