Credit Suisse Financial Services gives children a ticket to life
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| Ticket to Life: ensuring children everywhere have official papers |
Putmayo, Columbia, 9 July 2002 - Eleven-year-old Juan Jairo lives in a small village in the border area between Colombia and Venezuela, and has worked harvesting coca leaves on an illegal plantation since his fifth birthday.
When he suffered acid burns at work last year, the hospital turned him away because he had no birth certificate.
Until the joint Credit Suisse Financial Services / UNICEF Switzerland campaign, "Ticket To Life", helped him to obtain his official papers, Juan was "non-existent" in the eyes of his government. His mother did not register his birth, mistakenly believing that it required his father's acknowledgement.
Juan was brought up thinking that to have papers was a disadvantage.
He told UNICEF: "A lot of people in these parts don't bother. They say it makes life easier not to have papers because nobody asks you questions when you go from one country to another and the law never bothers you because 'you don't exist'."
"Not having a birth certificate seemed to have its advantages, but now I know my life may depend on having one," he said.
The Ticket to Life campaign seeks to ensure children everywhere have official papers, like birth certificates, obliging governments to take responsibility for their welfare.
Credit Suisse Financial Services gave the Ticket to Life campaign a sum equivalent to 44 000 company working hours - one for each of their employees. CSFS workers also took part in company-wide awareness drive for the scheme dubbed "World Day 2001".
Thomas Wellauer, CEO of Credit Suisse Financial Services said, "By demonstrating our commitment to Ticket to Life through World Day we aim to improve the situation of non-registered children. Our involvement emphasizes the acceptance of our responsibility, both as individuals and as a company, towards society."
Credit Suisse Financial Services say World Day brought all their employees together to share work on one project, with one common goal.
According to UNICEF, 40 million of the world's children are not registered. Without a birth certificate, and the state protection it entails, they may not only be refused access to national healthcare but also turned away from state-run education and nutrition programmes.
UNICEF say unregistered children risk exploitation by employees, and, where the fate of a "non-existent" child is seen to be unimportant, by the police themselves.
A high propo
rtion of unregistered children fall victim to exploitation and violence. Many will never learn to read or write, and as adults they will be denied the right to vote.
Juan is one of millions of children in Bangladesh, Uganda and Columbia who have now been registered by the Ticket to Life campaign.
The Ticket to Life campaign targeted 100,000 children in his area and aims to register a further 80,000 elsewhere in Colombia. The project is also targeting a million children in Bangladesh this year, and all children up to the age of eight in 26 Ugandan districts.
In a note of thanks to all the employees of CSFS worldwide, UNICEF's Executive Director Carol Bellamy wrote "The Ticket to Life initiative sets a positive example of how we can work together towards improving the lives of children worldwide. The initiative will also be a source of inspiration to the corporate world to take an active role towards building a world fit for children".