Nearly half of all children in Zimbabwe are unregistered and lack a birth certificate, with the issue being far worse in the poorer and rural areas where we work. Without a birth certificate these young people struggle to access education, healthcare and numerous welfare services. Later in life it affects formal employment opportunities and their right to vote.
A child without a birth certificate is prevented from fulfilling almost a third of the 30 guarantees set out in the U.N’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For over a decade, we have been working with Trinity Project, tackling Zimbabwe’s birth registration crisis.
We adopt a holistic approach to tackling the problem working with diverse agents within society, from individual children and families, to community leaders, from lawmakers, to the institutions themselves.
- We provide free advice, guidance and legal support to orphans, vulnerable children and their families. This process is complex and expensive, so external support is often the critical difference in successful registrations. Birth certification is most frequently dependant on other documents so we help secure these too.
- We raise awareness of the rights and protections a child is entitled to and how to claim them by working within communities. This is vital as children are commonly not registered because the parent or guardian isn’t aware or doesn’t value how important a birth certificate is. Or, because they do not understand the registration process.
- We press for institutional change and have already helped reform laws, policies and processes to make birth registration more user-friendly. However, hidden costs and legal barriers within the process make it difficult for many and almost impossible for an orphaned or impoverished child.
- We lead an advocacy coalition and we network with likeminded partners to ensure collaborative, effective and sustainable change. These include; health clinics, NGOs (such as Disabled Women in Africa and SOS Children’s Villages) Social Services & Child Welfare, Ministry of Education, Local Government Health Departments and more. This approach has the potential to drastically transform the birth registration context, improving the lives and prospects of hundreds of thousands of young people.
- Helped 7,700 children and 2,600 adults to access documentation
- Worked with over 30,000 parents and community members
- In 2016 and again in 2018 were invited by the government to draft a parliamentary motion on birth registration in Zimbabwe. Changes adopted as a result include;
- Banning hospitals from withholding birth records
- Scrapping fees to register children born outside of Zimbabwe
The vast majority of beneficiaries go on to access education, healthcare, welfare and social services, thereby demonstrating the importance of registration in realising basic human rights. As part of a cultural shift, the children and families we work with report a better understanding of their rights and entitlements and how to claim them – empowered to support themselves in future.
Website: https://trinity.org.zw/ Under development