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80,000 ‘lockdown babies’ unregistered

12 Jul 2020

By Sarah Hannan The Family Health Bureau recently said that a staggering 80,000 births have gone unregistered, owing to the lockdown imposed at the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak. Between the months of March and May, the Registrar General’s Department was unable to record these births in order to issue birth certificates to these newborns, placing the new parents in an inconvenient situation. “Ideally, a new birth needs to be entered into the registry within 42 days of the child’s birth. However, the lockdown has created a lapse in entering the details, thus creating a backlog of work for the Department as well. We are looking to launch a mobile birth registration service across the country to curtail this situation,” Registrar General N.C. Withanage told The Sunday Morning. The Department emphasised that parents can apply for the child’s birth certificate by submitting their marriage certificate, birth certificates, and declaration only, and will not require a grama niladhari to certify the application and attest the documents that are appended.


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