Chronicle Editor
Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Senior Reporter
THE Registrar-General Mr Henry Machiri has called on health institutions to desist from withholding birth records from women who have maternal fees arrears saying it’s illegal and against policy.
This follows an outcry from women struggling to benefit from the ongoing national registration blitz launched by the Government last month.
According to the Zimbabwean Constitution every child has a right to prompt provision of a birth certificate.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage through the Civil Registry Department is conducting the national mobile registration exercise from April 1 until September 30, clearing the backlog created by travel and working restrictions needed to combat Covid-19. At one stage civil registration offices were closed.
The speeding-up in issuing national identity documents will also enable citizens who wish to participate in next year’s harmonised elections to register as voters.
In an interview, the Registrar-General said it is illegal for health institutions to withhold birth records for whatever reason.
He said the development is derailing progress of the national registration blitz as some institutions still defy policy.
“Our nationwide registration is going on well besides the fact that we still have health institutions that deny women birth records over arrears. The Ministry of Health does not have jurisdiction over that document, we print and supply them for free and we are disappointed when women complain that they are denied these if they are owing,” he said.
“There is no one who should withhold that document, every woman should get it after delivery whether they owe or not considering the fact that maternal fees were scrapped. We expect to cover a majority of our citizens during this blitz and call upon health institutions to co-operate and release these documents.”
Mr Machiri said his office was willing to supply birth records to any health institution which may be in shortage.
“By year’s end we should have covered everyone or at least a majority in terms of these critical documents. We encourage members of the public to take advantage of this blitz so that we clear the backlog and avail documents to every Zimbabwean,” he added.
Sharing her ordeal, *Sibusisiwe Moyo, said she had failed to get a birth record at Mpilo Central Hospital for her son born in January 2020.
She, like hundreds of other Zimbabwean women has been denied the only document needed to obtain a birth certificate.
With the civil registry having decentralised the services to cover the gap left by Covid-19 disruptions, Moyo cannot let this chance go without trying again.
To her disappointment the officer overseeing records explained to her that all she needs is to clear $7 000 arrears she incurred when her child was born to be able to access the birth record.
It cannot be explained how she ran up the bill because the Government scrapped maternity fees at public health institutions.
Further, Government has repeatedly said it is illegal for any health institution to withhold birth records for any reason, but the story on the ground is different as hospitals defy the directive.
“I am a single mother with no source of income and not sure how I will be able to raise that much. However, I need to get my son a birth certificate soon in case anything happens to me,” said Moyo in a tired voice.
“I am afraid of taking the issue up as the Mpilo officers can victimise me but I cannot let this chance pass me by without the certificate. We heard that maternal fees had been scrapped but I do not know how public hospitals still expect us to pay since the Government said the services are for free.”
Etched on her face is the hopelessness of a person who has tried everything she can think of, in vain.
In Tsholotsho lives 25-year-old Agnes Sibanda who has also struggled to get birth records from the district hospital due to arrears.
“I delivered my first baby in 2017 and was detained at the hospital for almost two weeks as I was owing. I eventually got discharged as they ran out of space but was denied a birth record for my eldest son. Again in 2021 I went back to the same hospital to deliver my second baby and was denied the record for not clearing arrears by the time I was ready to be discharged, ” she said.
“Most people in my family struggled in life because they had no birth certificates and identity cards. I live in fear that my children may suffer the same ordeal because the registry offices are not easily accessible. I wish to take advantage of the ongoing national blitz so that I secure the future of my children although I am too poor to raise the needed funds for my arrears.”
She said some people in her district have moved to neighbouring South Africa where they have assumed new identities after losing the battle to get birth records in their motherland.
Moyo and Sibanda represent experiences that some women often encounter in their pursuit to acquire birth certificates for their children.
Without a birth certificate, a child cannot be identified in the national data base.
They cannot go to school or benefit from national programmes targeted at their peers, hence the battle by parents, especially mothers, to secure birth records that are used to acquire birth certificates. — @thamamoe
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