ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia on Friday launched civil registration for refugees, which includes registration of refugees' vital life events, including birth, death, marriage and divorce, directly with national authorities.
At the launch Friday, 11 refugees were issued with certificates in the capital Addis Ababa. Civil registration offices have also been established in each of the 26 refugee camps, as well as in the seven locations with a high concentration of refugees.
According to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), the move is a "historic first and a ground-breaking development for refugee protection in Ethiopia, not previously realized over decades."
More than 70,000 refugee children born in Ethiopia over the last decade have not had their births registered and will soon be issued with birth certificates, according to UNHCR. Accordingly, children born before the new law came into force can also now obtain a birth certificate retroactively, it was noted.
Civil registration for refugees has been made possible following an amendment to an existing legislation, in which the UNHCR and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) collaborated with the government of Ethiopia in the preparation of the amendment.
According to the statement issued by the UNHCR on Friday, the support is one of the nine pledges made at the Leaders' Summit held in New York in September 2016.
Other commitments included to grant work permits to refugees, strengthen access to education, to allow a significant number of refugees to reside outside of refugee camps and to locally integrate long-staying refugees, the statement indicated.
The framework, among other things, aims to enhance refugee self-reliance and inclusion, provide refugees with better possibilities for solutions to their plights, and ease pressure on host countries.
According to figures from the Ethiopian government, the east African country currently hosts more than 883,000 refugees, mainly from South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
