On
Birth
Registrations,
UNICEF on
Myanmar &
Mali
Arrests, UN
Split on Age?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 11 --
On UNICEF's
67th birthday,
it launched a
report about
"Inequities
and Trends in
Birth
Registration"
around the
world.
Inner
City Press
asked about
Myanmar, Haiti
/ Dominican
Republic,
Lebanon /
Palestine and
finally about
Mali,
and five
children
imprisoned by
the
government
with which UN
Peacekeeping
is working.
On
this last, the
answer was the
UNICEF does
not get
involved in
such
individual
cases -- but
that disputes
about whether
someone is a
child should
be subject to
the assumption
that the
person is a
child.
This stands in
contrast to
Mali
expressing,
and then the UN echoing
to Inner City
Press on
December 5,
here,
that Amnesty
International
is wrong and
the detainees
are not
children. We
hope to have
more on this.
The
UNICEF report,
on Myanmar,
said that
country
"currently has
no
electronic
record of
children
registered at
birth or
registered
through late
registration
procedures;
records exist
only as paper
copies kept at
the local
Township
Medical
office. At the
national
level, forms
are discarded
after two
years."
Inner
City Press
asked how this
relates to
Myanmar
disputes that
the
Rohingya
Muslims are in
fact from
Myanmar, and
relatedly
asked about
people in
Haitian
descent who
are in the
Dominican
Republic (and
now
being
deported), and
Palestinians
not formally
refugees who
are in
Lebanon.
UNICEF's
Deputy
Executive
Director Geeta
Rao Gupta
deferred the
question to
Claudia Cappa,
Statistics and
Monitoring
Specialist who
said that her
agency favors
registration
being
"confidential
and secure,"
to not play
into
discrimination.
The
plight of
Palestinians
in
Lebanon was
not addressed.
UNICEF's
report says:
"In Lebanon,
most
Palestinian
children are
registered as
refugees, but
those who do
not
have this
official
status cannot
have their
birth
registered."
On
Mali, on
December 3
Inner City
Press asked
UN
Spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky about
Amnesty
International's
report that
Mali has
locked up
children:
Inner
City Press: on
Mali, there
was a report
put out by
Amnesty
International,
naming very
specifically
children that
are
incarcerated
by the Malian
Army and
authorities
and saying
they
should be
released and
describing
exactly how
they were
imprisoned.
Given that
MINUSMA
(United
Nations
Multidimensional
Integrated
Stabilization
Mission in
Mali) works
with the
Malian army
and there
is a UN
presence
there,
including
human rights
monitoring,
has the UN
chimed in on
this? Are they
seeking the
release of
these children
detainees of
the Malian
authorities?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
I’ll need to
check. I don’t
have anything
on that,
Matthew.
After
a couple days,
UN
Peacekeeping
through
Nesirky's
office
provided this
response, on
children:
To:
Matthew.Lee
[at]
innercitypress.com
From:
UN
Spokesperson -
Do Not Reply
[at] un.org
Date: Thu, Dec
5, 2013 at
4:19 PM
Subject:
Your question
on Mali
[children]
, 
