The report, titled “Identity, Citizenship, and the Registrar General: The Politicking of Identity in Zimbabwe”, found that unaffordable charges, the difficult and corrupt attitudes of Registry employees, and bureaucratic hurdles are preventing many women from accessing official documents. These include birth confirmation records, birth certificates, identity cards, passports, driver’s licenses, marriage certificates, and death certificates.
The right to an identity underpins many of the most basic human rights. The report notes that “without an identity an individual becomes a stateless person, and basic entitlements such as a name, a domicile, freedom of movement, access to education, the right to vote, the right to work, and such other rights are lost or exercised with varying levels of difficulty.”
However, neither the current Zimbabwean Constitution, nor the Birth and Death Registration Act [Chapter 5:02], provide for birth registration as a right, which is the first step towards defining an individual’s identity.
Furthermore, access to the lowest level of education, as well as national examinations, requires the presentation of a birth certificate or an identity card, but costs often prohibit parents from acquiring birth certificates.
In interviews with 160 women from nine different provinces RAU recorded numerous problems at the Registrar General’s office, including misidentifying people as dead, derogatory attitudes towards women, and corruption.
One person note: “those who have money can jump the queue and get their passport immediately. But those without money have to sleep at the offices. Solving the issue of corruption would help.” The RG’s office is also criticised for being overly bureaucratic. One respondent noted that she was told “to bring the landlord and his ID and his proof of residence and an affidavit that I am his tenant. Which landlord would agree to be dragged to the registrar’s office at 4am in order to be there when you get served at 7 am?”
The report also criticises long queues and delays. A number of people who had lost their identity cards also reported that, when replaced, the new cards recorded them as aliens, a term given to Zimbabweans of white or foreign origin, who are perceived not to have their ancestral roots in the country. The report notes that “for the women, this new dimension tended to raise further problems for them regarding getting identity documents for their offspring. It also then disenfranchised them, as aliens cannot vote in terms of the current electoral laws.”
RAU recommends centralising the archaic registry databases to speed up service and reduce bureaucracy, and wants the RG’s office to strengthen its complaints procedure to enable public scrutiny of the office’s staff and services.
Post published in: News