By GETHSEMANE MWIZABI–

FELISTUS Sikabo is a mother of one.
Her baby was born seven months ago in Masaiti of Chief Chiwala’s area, some 30kilometres from Ndola.  Like many babies and children in a 15, 000 plus village her baby is without a birth certificate.
She gave birth at a local health post where she was only given a piece of paper to take to Ndola Central Hospital (NCH) which is some 30 kilometres away.
Due to the distance and lack of resources she has not been able to make it to the hospital to formalise the birth of her daughter.  To make matters worse, Ndola Central Hospital is not a final place to obtain a birth certificate. After Ndola Central Hospital she would need to go to the district commissioner (DC)’s office for more modalities and from there, her daughter’s papers would need to be sent to Lusaka for the certificate to be processed. And if she does not make constant follow-ups she will not get the certificate. The papers  might even go missing through the process.
By the way, the certificate is not made in a day, she has to wait several weeks it to be ready.
Ms Sikabo is thus not prepared to venture into long winding process whose results might be futile.
“I don’t have the birth certificate for  the child because due to the cumbersome process involved.All I have is an under five card,” she says.
Her case is not unique. Throughout Zambia’s rural and even urban areas lots of children have no birth certificate. The only documents they have are under five cards and birth records which are not as significant compared to having a birth certificate.
Mable Phiri, a mother of three boys says getting a birth certificate is like trying to acquire a Visa to the United Kingdom (UK).
She said the process is cumbersome and frustrating.
“I tried to make an effort to get the certificates at the District Commissioners office in Ndola but to no avail ,” she said.
At the DC ‘s office the  officers clearly stated to her how the procedure was conducted and as a result she ended up using children’s birth records because  she was getting passports for them.
“I don’t understand why birth records should be processed in Lusaka when other provincial towns can also be tasked to do the same,” she said.
There is no doubt that this bureaucracy has encouraged corruption because parents are desperate to acquire birth certificates particularly those relocating to different countries.
The same goes to those adopting children as they have to part away with quite a good sum to acquire the certificate.
So many people would desire to have birth certificates it is not easy as the process is so hard to endure.
According to the 2010 National Census, only 17 per cent of Zambia’s children, who constitute more than half of the population, are registered.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stipulates the
right of every child to be given an identity at birth, so that his or
her origins and nationality are secured and to help safe-guard numerous
human rights, including the right to inheritance.
In addition to the UN-CRC birth registration is also promoted and supported by other strong international frameworks including the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (article 6) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 24(2)). In Zambia universal birth registration is guaranteed under the Birth and Deaths Registration Act, Cap 51. The Act provides for compulsory registration of all children born in Zambia.
More than just the processes involved in acquiring a birth certificate most people do not see the value in getting one. Children grow up and they go on to become adults without an identity of some sort. By the way a birth certificate is critical when to obtaining a National Registration Card (NRC), when a child attains the age of 16.
Now, it can never be argued that identity of some sort is important to fully enjoy the rights and privileges of being called a citizen.
UNICEF Zambia Chief of Child Protection Maud Droogleever Fortuyn, attributes the challenges of acquiring a birth registration to several factors among them distance lack of decentralised system of registration and so forth.
True, challenges are plenty and are at different levels and can be categorised as around low demand, service delivery, legal and policy and quality of services:
Centralised issuance of birth registration- All birth registration applications from all districts/provinces have to be sent to Lusaka for final processing and issuance of certificates.
This is due to the current Birth and Deaths Act which only allows the Registrar General or his Deputy to sign the certificates. This process of sending the papers  to Lusaka not only takes weeks and sometimes months but also over- burdens the people at headquarters so only a limited number of applications are processed at any given time.
The time it takes also discourages other potential applicants.
Long distances to registration centres: Difficulty for families living in remote and poor areas to access the service due to long distances to registration centres at district level, coupled with the cost of transportation.  Multiple trips are undertaken to complete the process adding to the cost.
Although by law for one to access certain services such as NRC, passport, school enrolments, among others one needs to provide a birth certificate, alternative documents are easily accepted in lieu of birth certificates e.g. affidavits so people don’t really see the need to have one and, therefore, don’t bother to register. Of course this requirement for a birth certificate for instance when enrolling a child in school, can only be implemented when the birth registration system is fully accessible and functions smoothly.
Weak management of system/records resulting in poor quality and at times inaccessible service: paper based, manual entry, low budget allocation to the department, low staffing, records are not computerised and this leads to errors and missing documents, compounded by the need to send paper documents from the district to province to Lusaka and back again.
“T here is very little public access to information on birth registration.
National public campaigns on birth registration are not done especially by Government and political leaders. The only people that do this are civil society leaders but this is limited to specific geographical areas where these NGOs operate,” she said.
But full-scale awareness campaigns can only start when the system is in place with decentralised certification.
The importance of birth registration can never be under-estimated.
Birth registration means proof of legal identity. Being a permanent and official recording of a child’s existence by the state, birth registration is fundamental to the realisation of the child’s rights and practical needs.
It helps them secure their right to nationality, which can also be extremely important when moving to another country for any reason (refugee, migration). It also helps ensure access to basic services including immunisation, health care and school enrolment at the right age.
It is also essential in protection efforts including prevention of child labour, defilement and child marriage by enforcing age related laws such as provisions of the Penal Code.
Children in conflict with the law are not treated as adults in the justice system if they can prove that they are under 19 and a birth certificate is the best proof.
Unregistered children are more vulnerable to be trafficked as they are not recorded anywhere by the State and thus can easily be trafficked. State security/prosecutors will find it difficult even to bring traffickers to book as there is no evidence that the children were trafficked from Zambia for instance.
It also protects children’s right to inheritance, especially in case of parent’s death as the birth registration will clearly show the parents’ names.
Furthermore, it provides statistics to Government which are vital in the planning for basic social services such as child grants/social cash transfers, health and education services such as construction of hospitals and schools, among others.
Projects 
Manager at Media Network on Child Rights and Development Prisca Sikana said there is need for the whole registration process to be decentralised to avoid red tape.
Ms Sikana, whose organisation, champions and advocates the rights of children through the media, said many children in Zambia had no birth certificates due to the repugnant process involved.
“It’s sad that something which is a right is hard to access. The question of identity is a very important aspect of human worth and dignity,” she said.
On the other hand, she calls for lots of rigorous sensitisation programmes on the importance of birth registration.
“For a child born at home, the problem is worsened as the parents do not even have the required documents such as birth records to begin the process,” she said.
There is also the problem of lack of information among people on why it is important to register their children immediately they are born. Most people don’t see the need to have the registration done. Apart from it being a right for their children, the birth certificate is the first identity document a human being possesses in their life.
However, not all hope is lost. Through the support from UNICEF and its partners, including the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Government of the Republic of Zambia is now able to register births at selected health facilities in Luapula, Southern and Eastern provinces.
This initiative promises to remove Zambia from the list of 10 countries with the largest number of unregistered children in the world.
For example, between April and September of 2013, 3,149 children were registered in Luapula as compared to only 150 in 2012. Through the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics National Steering Committee, the Department of National Registration under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health are working closely. Other stakeholders are UNICEF, Plan International, Zambia Law Development Commission, Minister of Education, Science Vocational Training and Early Child Education, Ministry of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs, Home Affairs Research and Information Department, Central Statistics Office, Ministry of Gender and Child Development, World Health Organisation, United Nations Fund for Population Activities and Africa Development Bank, Economic Commission for Africa, among others.
Further, plans have been scaled up for these services to other provinces following a review early in the year.
Other activities will include sensitisation and awareness to ensure that more children enjoy their right to an identity, a right which is assured under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Zambia has signed and ratified. Lots remain done though.
The question that remains is: if acquiring a birth certificate is a right of a child, then why is it so hard to acquire one?
Chief Chiwala of the Lamba people in Masaiti says birth registration needs to be decentralised to allow children to get birth certificates.
“Most children in villages if not all have no birth certificates. The process is too long and most families are poor and can’t travel to pursue the process,” he said.
Ultimately, as Ms Sikana would argue, the question of birth registration places a double responsibility on the Government and on parents (guardians). The government has a duty to decentralise the issuance of birth certificates so that they can be accessed easily.  It should not be a struggle to access a birth certificate.
On the other hand, people need to understand that non registration of a child has an impact on development of any community and nation because with unregistered children planning is difficult. Further, Parents and guardians also need to understand that it is the right of every child to be registered at birth.
If a child has no birth certificate, statically they do not exist. Denial of someone to have this document is against the principles of human rights.
There is need for affirmative action towards child rights and registration.
Big Government needs to allocate resources to quicken the process of decentralisation. The pilots in Luapula and Eastern being under-taken together with UNICEF should be extended to other parts of the country.
There is plenty of unaccounted for children and births in Zambia.