Rights

Birth certificate: Get it………..

By DOREEN NAWA

THERE is much to admire about Donald Trump. He built a successful business empire by having a vision that few people possess.

That aside, Donald Trump did get President Barack Obama to release his birth certificate when nobody else could.

Donald Trump is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts.

The issue of President Obama's birth certificate is possibly the most widely discussed controversy in recent American history.

This entire controversy was centred on a birth certificate showing how important the document is to every person.

For instance, without a birth certificate, children in Burundi, for example, cannot enrol in school; orphans and other vulnerable children in Mozambique are denied access to government-subsidized support programmes; and children in South Africa, Kenya, Lesotho and Namibia, are not eligible to receive child support grants.

But in Zambia, very few parents get birth certificates for their children.

According to UNICEF’s document titled, ‘State of the World's Children 2012’, Zambia has less than 20 per cent of all births registered. The document indicates that only nine per cent of the rural births are registered while 28 are registered in urban areas.

Despite its importance, a number of people in Zambia have not obtained their birth certificates. Reasons brought forwards by Josephine Mooka include the long procedure and just the ignorance of how important the document is.

“I wish I had a way, birth certificates would have been issued at a point of delivery. If I give birth at the University Teaching Hospital, before I get discharged, I should be given a birth certificate and that way, it would be easier. But like the way it is, it tends to be cumbersome to get a birth certificate because of the process and the culture of the staff at the Registration offices,” Mrs Mooka says.

Apart from being the first legal acknowledgement of a child’s existence, the registration of births is fundamental to the realisation of a number of rights and practical needs.

“The office of the registrar should look at this vital process and something must be done. It is not different from census. It helps government plan for the people. The same with birth certificate, children will only exist in the eyes of their governments, and enjoy their fundamental rights when they are officially registered with a birth certificate,” Mrs Mooka explains.

A birth certificate is one of the most important documents a child will ever own.

Yet this process is one of the neglected in Zambia. Obtaining a birth certificate is a challenge following the manual way of obtaining the birth certificate

 “Just the process of getting a birth certificate puts one off. It’s done manually and the staffs are overwhelmed with work. I am glad that something is being done to correct the situation. We need a situation where someone as old as 80 years can walk to the registrar’s office and get a copy of his birth certificate,” Dr Joseph Katema, Minister of Community Development, Mother and Child Health says.

This simple document is an essential requirement to confer access to basic rights, and to gain access to social services, including immunization, health care and schooling.

According to Dr Katema, at the national level, birth registration statistics are fundamental to informed planning to ensure that the basic needs of children are met. They generate information about the size, gender and age of the child population, which help governments to plan effectively for education, health, social welfare and a host of other services.

United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) acknowledges that data provided by birth registers is also important for monitoring progress towards key development indicators, such as the Millennium Development Goals.

Nothing would seem simpler than recording the name, sex, parentage, and time and place of a child’s birth, but the reality in Zambia is different. The country has some of the lowest rates of birth registration in the Southern African Region.

According to UNICEF’s document titled, ‘State of the World's Children 2012’, the reasons for low rates of birth registration are varied and complex. Birth registration is not always compulsory, and laws are not adequately enforced.

“A major barrier is also the lack of sufficient awareness – on the part of parents and officials – of the direct long-term consequences on children and the impact on development planning.  Birth registration is often not a national priority and government fail to commit resources to establishing strong birth registration systems,” the document read in parts.

There are numerous reasons why parents fail to register their children. Some live a long distance from the nearest registry office and some cannot afford the registration fee.

According to Julius Chilekwa of Lusaka, the reasons for some people not getting a birth certificate is lack of a place for safe keeping important documents because of poor housing conditions.

“This is why some prefer to delay registration until they feel confident that all their children have reached an age when their chances of surviving to adulthood are good. Birth certificate is an important document and for me, I prefer my children get it themselves when they grow up,” SAYS Mr Chilekwa.

Government resources are another problem, says Mr Chilekwa, “Often civil registry offices are few and far between, or lack basic facilities such as typewriters, filing cabinets or trained staff.

Zambia has the highest rate of unregistered children in the Southern African region, the United Nations Children's Funds, Unicef, has said.

Thousands of children in Zambia could be missing out on their rights to health care and education because they are not being registered at birth.

Birth certificate may not be the cure to all economic challenges that children face in Zambia. However, in other developing countries, it is one of the first systems of protection a family can depend on when a precious new gift is brought into their lives.

In other countries, children lacking identification and registration often find life that much more daunting. It’s crucial for every child to be counted and known. Only then can a child walk down the path toward life in all its fullness.