Yogyakarta (ANTARA News) - Some 36 million out of 86 million Indonesian children have no certificates of birth, Social Service Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said.
"Certificate of birth is the basic right of every child," she said here Thursday.
Certificates of birth have been given to children free of charge in the East Nusa Tenggara provincial capital of Kupang.
"I ask mothers to arrange certificates of birth for their children. Issuing certificates of birth to children is one of the governments ways to meet their basic necessities," she said.
Holding these certificates will pave the way for children to lead a better life, she said.
"They want to attend university and find jobs but because they have no certificates of birth they will find it hard to do so," she said.
The number of children having no birth certificates is how their parents have no family cards, she said.
"The parents also do not have resident identity cards so their children were born without certificates of birth. Some of the mothers gave birth to their children with the help of traditional midwives or at their home," she said.
The government has kept registering children who were born without birth certificates to have such certificates, she said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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