Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The Registrar-General (RG) issued birth certificates to two minor children, early this week, to end their statelessness dilemma, following the intervention of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR).
This came after the ZLHR obtained a court order compelling the Registrar-General to issue birth certificates to the two minors.
According to the human rights lawyers, the two minors aged 12 and 10 years had been forced to endure statelessness for more than a decade after the RG, Henry Machiri refused to issue them with birth certificates on the basis that the children’s mother was still legally married to her estranged husband, a man who left for the UK, two decades ago and whose whereabouts were unknown.
The woman engaged in a relationship with another man after her husband’s disappearance, resulting in the birth of the two girls.
When the woman attempted to obtain birth certificates for her two children, the RG’s Office insisted that she should first produce a disclaimer affidavit from her estranged husband disowning the 2 girls and also demanded that their biological father should furnish the RG’s Office with DNA test results confirming the paternity of the children.
Adding onto her dilemma, the woman’s 12-year-old daughter was scheduled to register for her Grade 7 examinations, which will be written later this year and her school had demanded to be furnished with a birth certificate to facilitate her registration.
The woman then engaged (ZLHR), whose lawyers, Jabulani Mhlanga and Prisca Dube, August 2023 petitioned the High Court seeking an order to compel the RG to issue the two minor children with birth certificates arguing that the conduct of the RG was contributing to statelessness and was a denial of access to documentation of deserving people, which contravened provisions of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to identity.
On 21 March, Bulawayo High Court Judge Justice Nokuthula Moyo ordered the RG to register and issue the 12-year-old and 10-year-old children with birth certificates within 7 days.
In her ruling, Justice Moyo castigated the conduct of authorities at the RG’s Office for refusing to register births of children without availing valid reasons, which she said was contrary to the provisions of the Constitution and was contributing to statelessness and was a denial of access to documentation of deserving people.
The Judge criticised the conduct of officials in the RG’s Office for giving themselves powers that are not conferred to them in terms of the law and for placing onerous requirements on parents applying for birth certificates of their children.
Justice Moyo stated that the RG does not have powers to order DNA tests among other requirements to prove paternity and emphasised that it was not the duty of the RG to enquire into and regulate the marital status of the parents applying for birth certificates for their minor children.
The Judge emphasised the importance of the right to a birth certificate and that it is not a right that can just be interfered with and that the RG is mandated to facilitate the process of assisting one to obtain such a critical document.
On Monday 22 April, the RG’s Office issued the two minors with birth certificates thereby ending their lengthy statelessness dilemma.
The issuance of the birth certificates came after Bulawayo Provincial Registrar, Jane Peters, called Mhlanga and Dube inviting the minors’ parents to go to the Bulawayo District Registrar’s Office with all their documents and the court order, to facilitate the processing and issuance of the birth certificates of the minors.
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