Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has reported that nearly 150,000 children displaced by the conflict in Mali do not have birth certificates and risk exclusion and disenfranchisement because they cannot prove their identity.

The NRC’s Director for Mali, Maclean Natugasha, said thousands of children are excluded from society when they should be in school.

According to NRC, 148,600 displaced children in Mali, which is more than half of the total number of displaced children in the country, do not have state-issued birth certificates proving their legal identity.

It said the situation deprives them of their most basic rights as citizens and puts them at risk of being marginalised.

The NRC said these displaced children have either lost their birth certificates as they fled from home or simply never had one due to the limited functioning of civil status services in certain areas of the country.

Mali has been in the grip of a security crisis since 2012 that has left thousands dead and of which civilians are the main victims.

According to the United Nations (UN), more than half a million children have been affected by school closures, which puts the future of the country in jeopardy.

NRC warned that if this problem of civil status is not resolved before these children reach adulthood, they risk being deprived of their freedom of movement, the right to vote and the possibility to own or rent property.

Photo source: UNICEF Ethiopia