By GARY GERALD MTOMBENI
Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. FOR Sophia Mtare, a widow raising seven children, the path to getting her children’s birth certificates was a gruelling one.
The journey required her to walk for kilometres and stay overnight in a remote location to obtain cheaper means of transport and access vital documents for her children.
Now, thanks to a new mobile registration programme, Mtare is sharing how attaining birth certificates for her two young children has changed everything.
“The challenges that I faced before mobile registration were that I had no money to travel to Binga to collect their birth certificates and IDs. At some point, I would walk long distances and sleep at Tshunga-lunga, wake up in the morning, walk again to Siabuwa, where I would then catch a bus at a cheaper fare, only to get these documents for my other children.”
“Today I am happy that the civil registrar has brought mobile registration closer to my home, and today I collected birth certificates and IDs for my two children who had left without these documents.”
“They are now going to get jobs with these documents, and they will be able to look after me,” she added.
Binga is an area known for its challenging terrain and wildlife conflicts.
For people of the Tshunga-lunga community, accessing essential documents was a daunting task, often requiring long journeys fraught with danger.
However, a recent mobile registration exercise, conducted by the Civil Registry Department in partnership with Unicef and funded by the government of Sweden, has brought new hope to this hard-to-reach area.
The mobile registration initiative aimed to provide vital documents such as IDs, birth certificates and death certificates to thousands of villagers who had previously been excluded from formal identification.
For many, obtaining these documents was a matter of great significance, as they open doors to various services and rights.
Zimbabwe’s birth registration coverage stands at 57%, as per the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey 2023-24).
The mobile civil registration programme is expected to significantly increase this number by providing services directly to marginalised communities.
This initiative demonstrates government’s commitment to improving access to vital registration services, especially in remote areas.
Lukasi Sachurusi (37), who had lived for one year without an ID after it had been burnt in an inferno, said the reason for his failure to obtain an ID recently was distance; it was too far to reach the Binga district office, and also funds weren’t allowing him to travel.
“I lost my ID in a fire, an unknown person got into one of the houses in our compound with petrol, we do not know how the house got burnt, but it torched another 28 houses in the compound, just like that, I lost my documents,” he added.
“The loss of my ID was limiting me from travelling, because an identification card is important, if something happens to me and I don’t have an ID it will be hard to be identified, that’s the reason why I grabbed today’s opportunity brought to us by the Civil Registry and Unicef of bringing mobile registration closer to our area, I got here at 10 and after an hour I had got my ID, it is fast and precise,” Sachurusi said.
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage ministry secretary Raphael Faranisi said the ministry, through the Civil Registry Department, was intensifying efforts nationally to ensure every Zimbabwean has access to an identity regardless of their location.
“It is against this background that the Civil Registry Department, in collaboration with Unicef, has embarked on a programme to conduct targeted mobile registration exercises. This dovetails well with the government’s policy of leaving no one and no place behind. Targeted mobile registration exercises have become a vital outreach mechanism to ensure those living in hard-to-reach areas are not left behind in terms of documentation.”
“The Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage extends its appreciation to the embassy of Sweden’s Development Cooperation Agency and also the Swiss Agency for Development Co-operation for their continued support through Unicef.”
“These interventions reflect our shared vision as we rally towards the provision of legal identity documents for all by 2030,” he added.
Knox Magambuza, a 17-year-old up-and-coming soccer star, said, before he got an ID, he was ineligible for selection to be part of a soccer team, which was depriving him of the chance to utilise his God-given talent.
“At school during vetting of the under 20 soccer team, they would require an ID for one to play, I would be vetted out all the time, it would hurt to watch others play while seated on the bench, I could not go to Binga to get an ID because it was far and there was no money to travel.”
“The mobile registration programme brought closer to me today has changed my life, now I am going to be able to play soccer and I look forward to playing for our national soccer team, The Warriors, and later on the English Premier League teams like Manchester City,” he added.
Some villagers took the opportunity to exchange their old documents for new ones.
Thandiwe Mtanga (34) said,” I noticed that my ID was torn, thus I decided to use this opportunity to change it to a new one.”
Unicef Zimbabwe child protection manager Nyasha Mayanga said the UN agency was supporting the government to strengthen the Civil Registry Department and vital statistics in the country.
“The system is a core foundation of protecting the rights and welfare of our children in this country. “
“Let’s appreciate that securing a birth certificate for the birth registration process is not merely an administrative process or a bureaucratic process, but it is a gateway to accessing essential services, to protecting the children and ensuring their right to identity and nationality is fulfilled.
“So a birth certificate is not just a piece of paper. There are these attendant issues that are beneficial to the children of Zimbabwe. Through the mobile registration exercise that you witnessed at Sinamusanga here in Binga, we are bringing services to the people, services to the families, services closer to the children themselves,” he added.
Chief Sinamusanga applauded the blitz.
“Back then, before this programme, people would walk about 200km to get birth certificates, IDs and death certificates.”
“We are happy that the government is working hand in hand with organisations such as Unicef in helping communities to access these important documents and bringing them closer to the remote areas,” he said.
“We are also working hand in hand with the Civil Registry Department and in the coming months we will be walking 18km to get to Tshunga-lunga for these services, from 200km, this shows a great improvement and it’s now accessible to everyone.”
Source: NewsDay
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