WORKSHOP ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF CIVIL REGISTRATION AND VITAL STATISTICS IN THE SADC REGION PRESENTED BY NEO C. LEPANG, DEPUTY DIRECTOR DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND NATIONAL REGISTRATION

OVERVIEW OF THE DEPARTMENT An arm of Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs Established in April 2003 by merging divisions of Civil registration and Vital Events AND National Registration. Mandate: To register all births and Deaths occurring in the country; marriages; societies as well as citizens eligible for the National Identity Cards and processing applications for change of name.

OVERVIEW CONT. Dept has regional offices overseeing 32 district offices. All the services provided by the department had been decentralised to the 32 districts.

LEGAL FRAMEWORK In delivering its mandate, the Department is guided by the: Births and Deaths Act Marriages Act National Registration Act

VOLUNTARY REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS REGISTRAR AND DISTRICT REGISTRARS ARE APPOINTED BY THE Minister as per the act. The law states that the Registrar shall maintain two registers to be called “BIRTHS REGISTER” and “DEATHS REGISTER” The law provides for the voluntary registration of birth to be done within three months after such birth has occurred.

voluntary registration of birth Law provides for mother/father or any person present at the birth or the occupier of a dwelling where the child was born notify such an event

Compulsory registration of birth/death It shall be the duty of the father/mother within three months to register every child born alive/any still-born child It shall be the duty of every adult relative of a deceased person who was present at his death or in attendance during his last illness or at his dwelling with him /occupier of the dwelling/ every adult inmate of the dwelling/any person who has caused the body to be buried to give to the district registrar notice in the prescribed manner of the death within 30 days thereafter.

BIRTHS AND DEATHS CERTIFICATES The Registrar shall furnish the public upon application and upon payment of the prescribed fee, with birth and death certificates. Every such certificate, shall in all courts of the law and public offices within Botswana, be prima facie evidence of the particulars set forth therein.

LATE REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS Late registration may be done after twelve months in the prescribed form referred to as “an application for late registration” and shall be accompanied by the prescribed fee. The Registrar may refuse to register a birth or death until such time as material facts relating to such birth/death have been proved to his satisfaction. An appeal may be lodged with the Minister by the aggrieved person.

RESTRICTIONS 0N ALTERATION OF THE REGISTERS The Registrar shall not alter any register of births and deaths unless authorized or directed by order of the high court to do so. (unless for correction of spelling errors or transcription)

CERTIFICATE BY A MEDICAL PRACTITIONER AS TO CAUSE OF DEATH The law provides that whenever any medical practitioner has attended during the last illness of any person, it shall be the duty of such medical practitioner on application by the District Registrar or by the person giving notice of death forthwith to send to the District registrar a certificate of the cause of death or notice of inability to sign such a certificate.

REGISTRATION OF MARRIAGES Section 11 of the marriages Act provides for the registration of marriages. To this extent, it provides that; Every marriage officer shall keep a register of marriages solemnized by him, indicating the place and date thereof, the full names of the parties, their ages, condition and residence; Whether the marriage was BANNS or special license Such register shall be signed in duplicate by the parties and by the marriage officer in the presence of two witnesses who shall also sign the register. The prescribed fee shall be paid to the marriage officer in respect of the registration of each marriage.

Registration of marriages cont. The Minister may, by notice published in the gazette appoint an officer to be styled the Registrar of Marriages” who shall be the custodian of all registers and records of marriages in Botswana; A duplicate original of the register of every marriage together with a prescribed fee shall be transmitted by the marriage officer to the Registrar within one month of the solemnization of the marriage.

REGISTRATION OF CUSTOMARY, MUSLIM, Section 23 of the marriages Act provides that; parties to a Customary, Muslim, Hindu and other religious marriages shall ensure that their marriage is registered within 2 months of contracting such marriages. The Registrar of marriages shall issue to the spouses a certificate of registration, bearing the prescribed particulars. Such a certificate constitute prima facie evidence of the existence of such marriage

Registration of customary…. Chiefs and Headman of record shall be ex-officio registrars of customary marriages in their respective areas of jurisdiction.

Use of information for statistical purposes The system of births and deaths is computerized. To this extent this information can be accessed by the statistics office. However, registration of marriages is still manually processed hence hard copies on the statistics on such have to be sent to CSO for processing.

CHALLENGES- BIRTHS AND DEATHS Cultural, religious and language barriers especially for the remote area dwellers Community mobility/nomadic nature of some communities. Difficulty in capturing home births and deaths Marriage registration not computerized. Incompleteness of either death of birth notification forms from health institutions Weak collaborative effort between stakeholders Resource constraints

CHALLENGES CONT. Lack of awareness by customers on the value to register vital events Birth registration is reported by UNICEF to be at 52% The Department is not mandated by law to register divorces. This is a gap in vital events registration.

Way forward Established cooperation with UNICEF to increase birth registration from 52% Recently (September) had a workshop with Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Local Government on how best to improve birth registration and the need for them to demand Birth certificates for people to access their services.

Way forward Had submitted a request with the Minister to consider waiving fee payment for a specific period to encourage people to register. Currently working on a communication strategy intended to publicise our services, importance thereof and underscore the need to register such.

ACHIEVEMENTS Registration of births and deaths occurring in health institutions Decentralization of registration services to all the 32 district offices Computerization of the births and deaths registration Interfacing of the births and deaths registration system with the national identification system. Registration no. of child becomes an identity no. of that child when the he turns 16 years and becomes eligible for national Identity card. Further, when a death of a citizen is registered the BDRS automatically updates the NIS so that the status of the individual changes from “live” to “dead”

ACHIEVEMENTS An established and comprehensive legal framework that allows for compulsory and universal recording of vital events. A firm civil service structure for service delivery that allows registration of vital events to have the characteristics of both continuity and permanence.

CONCUSION The need to improve on stakeholder coordination can greatly improve the number of births and deaths captured as well as the quality of the information collected for informed policy formulation and general programming. There is critical need to close the gap on divorce registration.