UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu called Tuesday for the registration of every child in the world at birth, calling the measure a matter of life or death.
An unregistered child does not officially exist and therefore vulnerable to traffickers and during disasters, so Tutu is taking part in a global campaign advocating child registration, the BBC reported.
In South Asia alone, there are no records for six of every 10 babies, campaign organizers said.
Tutu said a birth document "proves who you are," and without it children are often barred from an education, healthcare and citizenship.
"It is, in a very real sense, a matter of life and death," Tutu told a news conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York. "The unregistered child is a nonentity. The unregistered child does not exist. How can we live with the knowledge that we could have made a difference?"
