EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The major findings were as follows: • The major causes for non-registration included what respondents referred to as RGs office’s requirements being too strict and rigid. The long investment in time through travelling and queues emerged as a major discouraging element to birth registration. However, when there is an urgent requirement for it, such as school examination, they desperately and earnestly seek birth registration. • Parents do not enthusiastically seek the registration of the children soon after birth, but do so as the children mature or grow up and the birth certificate becomes a vital document in the children’s lives. The RGs office in Bindura also noted that often there is an apparent lack of interests by parents or guardians to register minors. • It was noted that crucial government offices (such as the RGs office) are situated in the provincial or district centres, which are, by and large, still very far away from the majority grassroots population • In Bindura 79% of respondents stated that the legal requirements and framework governing birth registration were generally unknown, misunderstood and inadequate. In Hurungwe 95% of respondents said that they were ignorant of the laws and that the legal framework that governed birth registration was inadequate and often stated in ambiguous ways by officials in the RGs office. • A major issue noted during the research related to the sponsorship of witnesses to the registration centres by way of paying for their bus fares, accommodation and food. The major socio-economic consideration and hindrance to birth registration of children was cited as the lack of finances to travel to registration centres. • Some women were reluctant to do this in fear of possible cultural and traditional repercussions in future, such as ngozi (an avenging spirit). It emerged also that 41 (25%) of women respondents were afraid of the “unknown”, if they registered children in their maiden names. • Social issues that emerged during the research and which affected birth registration of children had to do with case where there were remarriages. After a remarriage a father sometimes denies paternity or responsibility of his children and becomes reluctant to play his role in registration the children. • Some men argued that it must not be made to be so difficult for them to register children in their names in the absence of a joint request with the mother, for example, in cases when the mother is dead or has abandoned the child. • It was alleged by some respondents that the bureaucracy at RG’s offices contributed to 63% of those children that failed to get birth registration documents. Such bureaucracy included those people that came with what they think are the necessary documents and related requirements, only to be told that there is something else that is required for them to be registered. • It was noted that urban centres are more predisposed to greater rates of registration than the countryside due to the fact that registration offices are located in such centres. Likewise children delivered in hospital have a greater chance of being registered as compared to those delivered in homes. Birth Registration Research Report/2007 12