Birth Registration The First Right For the Child

BIRTH REGISTRATION SECURING YOUR CHILD’S FUTURE

During the holiday season, unwelcome visitors entered my home and relieved me of my personal belongings, including my identity documents. With my birth certificate and passport gone missing, I found myself in the peculiar situation of being unable to substantiate my identity, nationality, or even my own name through official means. I took it upon myself to get my documents from the Registrar’s office starting with my birth certificate. At the registrar’s office, I was already late to beat the queue at 630 in the morning because the queue was meandering and long. While we were waiting to be served we started sharing our birth registration issues that had brought us together. The problems ranged from wrong spellings, missing certificates, torn and old birth certificates, new registration and registering children who were born out of the country. What really shocked me was that there were two young men in their early twenties who did not have birth certificates. Chilling and pathetic were their testimonies of how they reached that age without any formal registration. We all wondered how these young men had lived all these years off the official record and what could have happened to them if they had an accident or if ever they wanted to be formally employed, they already had failed to write their grade seven examination because they did not exist officially and it was their families that had denied them this right.

What is birth registration and why bother yourself to register your child promptly one may ask? The UNICEF Report (2013) defines registration as the continuous, permanent and universal recording, within the civil registry, of the occurrence and characteristics of births in accordance with the legal requirements of a country. The Government of Zimbabwe enacted the Birth and Death Registration Act (5.02) as statutory instrument for the registration of all births (and deaths as well) in the country. In the new constitution of Zimbabwe it has been enshrined that all Zimbabwean citizens are entitled to, among other things birth certificate and other identity documents issued by the state. In the process of registering the birth of a child a parent or guardian has to firstly notify through a hospital or through an informant to the Registrar’s officers which will register and issue a birth certificate within a week or two. Despite the availability of these legal instruments and officials ready to serve, many children are not registered and do not have birth certificate throughout the country. UNICEF estimated that between 2010 and 2012, only 49 percent of the children under the age of five were registered and issued with birth certificates in Zimbabwe. In rural areas approximately 70 percent of the children are not registered while in the urban areas 43 percent are not registered. It is also estimated that nearly 230 million children under the age of five have never been registered worldwide. Many parents or guardians who do not register their children always take for granted the importance of birth certificates. A child who does not have a birth certificate does not legally exist. This lack of formal recognition by the state means that the child does not have a legal name, nationality or citizenship rights neither ;neither can their age can be ascertained. The major hindrances in obtaining birth certificate are the bureaucracy at the registrar’s office, the rigorous systems, screening and vetting the parent the parent and the long distances that parents or guardians travel to the registrar’s office. Parents in some cases overlook or fail to understand the importance of a birth certificate and only rush when there is a pressing need like when the child is about to go to school, writing an examination, or when there are inheritance squabbles. Late registration fees imposed by the state may encourage parents to register their children early but the statistics prove that the state is imposing an unfair burden on families that find it difficult to register such as those living in resettlements, farms and remote rural areas which are poorly served by government services and cannot afford the fees no matter how now nominal it may be. Registered children are a step ahead in securing their future as they will be recognised by the law hence their rights will be safeguarded. Without a birth certificate a child may be denied access to health and education, forced into early marriages or be pushed into the labour market or be detained as adults if they are accused of a crime because no one can prove their age. These violations of child rights can only be averted if there is a concerted effort to register children all the time.

Statistically, it is important to register children because it tracks the entry and exit of a human being into the world and it will help in data gathering. This data will be necessary for the development of policies and programming in health, education, employment and industrial production. No proper planning by the government or local authority can be done without proper data from birth and death registration. Birth registration not only guarantees the fulfillment of a child's future rights but also serves as a foundation for accessing other essential rights. Consequently, it is the responsibility of the government to facilitate easy access to registrar offices, particularly for families in remote areas such as resettlements, farms, and rural regions. This includes eliminating late registration fees in disadvantaged communities. It is imperative to invest in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), especially mobile communication technologies, is crucial to expanding birth registration coverage and alleviating congestion in district or central registry offices, which has been a major factor contributing to slow service delivery. B