Child marriage remains a threat to girls in Ghana, especially in communities where weak birth registration makes it difficult to establish whether a girl is old enough to marry.
Development Diaries reports that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has raised concerns about low birth registration rates in the country, warning of the consequences for children whose births are not officially recorded.
Birth registration gives children an official record of their identity, age, and parentage; without it, they may struggle to enroll in school, access health insurance, and obtain identity documents as they grow older.
For girls facing child marriage, the absence of proof of age can make it harder for families and child protection agencies to establish that they are underage.
Ghana has a legal framework for registering births, with the Births and Deaths Registry operating under the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, while the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 2020 (Act 1027) provides for registration within a prescribed period and allows late registration.
Health facilities are expected to notify the registry when children are born, but notification does not always lead to completed registration, as a child born in a hospital can still go without a birth certificate if the information does not reach the registry or the process is not completed.
The challenge is greater for children born outside health facilities, particularly in rural communities where parents may have to travel long distances to reach a registration office.
For families surviving on daily earnings, spending a day travelling to register a child can mean losing income they need for food and other household expenses.
These gaps follow children into other parts of their lives, with those without birth records encountering difficulties meeting school enrolment requirements, being registered as dependants under the National Health Insurance Scheme or obtaining a Ghana Card, which is increasingly used to access banking, SIM registration and formal employment.
The consequences are particularly serious in child marriage cases, where a birth certificate can help establish whether a girl is below the legal marriage age of 18. When her age is disputed, the absence of an official record can make it harder for those seeking to protect her to challenge the marriage.
The problem points to weaknesses in Ghana’s civil registration system, as registration offices remain concentrated in district capitals, leaving many communities far from the services they need.
The process linking the Ghana Health Service and the Births and Deaths Registry is also incomplete, allowing some births notified at health facilities to go unregistered.
Funding presents another challenge, as registry staffing and mobile registration exercises depend on government allocations.
The responsibility for closing these gaps rests with the Births and Deaths Registry, the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, the Ghana Health Service, and the Ministry of Finance and district assemblies.
Their work should ensure that children born in hospitals, homes and remote communities are registered without unnecessary delays or costs.
Ghana has obligations under Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires every child to be registered immediately after birth and recognises the right to a name and nationality. Article 6 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provides similar protections.
The country’s Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560) sets the minimum age of marriage at 18 and prohibits child betrothal, while Sustainable Development Goal target 16.9 commits countries to providing legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030.
These protections are harder to enforce when children have no official records to establish their age and identity.
Children in rural districts across the Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah, North East and Oti regions are particularly vulnerable, given the distances to health facilities and registration offices and the financial difficulties many households face.
Children born at home, those whose parents move between regions for agricultural work and those whose parents are themselves unregistered, face additional barriers.
For example, a parent without official documents may struggle to complete the process of registering a child, allowing exclusion to continue from one generation to the next.
Children with disabilities face another layer of exclusion, as identity documents may be required to access disability support services, special education and the disability supplement under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme.
Parents and guardians whose children remain unregistered should therefore approach their district Births and Deaths Registry offices to apply for late registration, which the law provides for.
Community leaders, assembly members and faith leaders should equally ask their district assemblies to organise mobile registration exercises in underserved communities.
Parents can also help close the gap between birth notification and registration by asking health facilities whether their child’s birth details have been transmitted to the registry and obtaining the relevant notification slip.
The Births and Deaths Registry, on its part, should publish district-level registration coverage data for 2025 and 2026, disaggregated by sex, within 60 days. This would help identify communities where registration remains low and show whether government interventions are improving coverage.
As for the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, it should provide funding for mobile registration in the 20 districts with the lowest coverage in the 2027 budget, while the Ghana Health Service and the registry should publish a joint protocol to ensure that birth notifications lead to completed registrations, with clear targets and quarterly progress reports.
Every child should be registered, regardless of where they are born or their family’s ability to travel to a district office, because a missing birth certificate can become a barrier to the rights they are entitled to enjoy.
