WORKSHOP ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF
CIVIL REGISTRATION AND VITAL
STATISTICS IN THE SADC REGION
PRESENTED BY NEO C. LEPANG,
DEPUTY DIRECTOR DEPARTMENT
OF CIVIL AND NATIONAL
REGISTRATION
OVERVIEW OF THE
DEPARTMENT
• An arm of Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs
• Established in April 2003 by merging divisions of
Civil registration and Vital Events AND National
Registration.
• Mandate: To register all births and Deaths
occurring in the country; marriages; societies as
well as citizens eligible for the National Identity
Cards and processing applications for change of
name.
OVERVIEW CONT.
• Dept has regional offices overseeing 32
district offices.
• All the services provided by the
department had been decentralised to the
32 districts.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
• In delivering its mandate, the Department
is guided by the:
• Births and Deaths Act
• Marriages Act
• National Registration Act
VOLUNTARY REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS
• REGISTRAR AND DISTRICT REGISTRARS
ARE APPOINTED BY THE Minister as per the
act.
• The law states that the Registrar shall maintain
two registers to be called “BIRTHS REGISTER”
and “DEATHS REGISTER”
• The law provides for the voluntary registration of
birth to be done within three months after such
birth has occurred.
voluntary registration of birth
• Law provides for mother/father or any
person present at the birth or the occupier
of a dwelling where the child was born
notify such an event
Compulsory registration of
birth/death
• It shall be the duty of the father/mother within
three months to register every child born
alive/any still-born child
• It shall be the duty of every adult relative of a
deceased person who was present at his death
or in attendance during his last illness or at his
dwelling with him
• /occupier of the dwelling/ every adult inmate
of the dwelling/any person who has caused
the body to be buried to give to the district
registrar notice in the prescribed manner of the
death within 30 days thereafter.
BIRTHS AND DEATHS
CERTIFICATES
• The Registrar shall furnish the public upon
application and upon payment of the
prescribed fee, with birth and death
certificates.
• Every such certificate, shall in all courts of
the law and public offices within Botswana,
be prima facie evidence of the particulars
set forth therein.
LATE REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS
AND DEATHS
• Late registration may be done after twelve
months in the prescribed form referred to as “an
application for late registration” and shall be
accompanied by the prescribed fee.
• The Registrar may refuse to register a birth or
death until such time as material facts relating to
such birth/death have been proved to his
satisfaction.
• An appeal may be lodged with the Minister by
the aggrieved person.
RESTRICTIONS 0N ALTERATION
OF THE REGISTERS
• The Registrar shall not alter any register of
births and deaths unless authorized or
directed by order of the high court to do
so. (unless for correction of spelling errors
or transcription)
CERTIFICATE BY A MEDICAL
PRACTITIONER AS TO CAUSE
OF DEATH
• The law provides that whenever any
medical practitioner has attended during
the last illness of any person, it shall be
the duty of such medical practitioner on
application by the District Registrar or by
the person giving notice of death forthwith
to send to the District registrar a certificate
of the cause of death or notice of inability
to sign such a certificate.
REGISTRATION OF MARRIAGES
• Section 11 of the marriages Act provides for the
registration of marriages. To this extent, it provides that;
• Every marriage officer shall keep a register of marriages
solemnized by him, indicating the place and date thereof,
the full names of the parties, their ages, condition and
residence;
• Whether the marriage was BANNS or special license
• Such register shall be signed in duplicate by the parties
and by the marriage officer in the presence of two
witnesses who shall also sign the register.
• The prescribed fee shall be paid to the marriage officer
in respect of the registration of each marriage.
Registration of marriages cont.
• The Minister may, by notice published in the
gazette appoint an officer to be styled the
Registrar of Marriages” who shall be the
custodian of all registers and records of
marriages in Botswana;
• A duplicate original of the register of every
marriage together with a prescribed fee shall be
transmitted by the marriage officer to the
Registrar within one month of the solemnization
of the marriage.
REGISTRATION OF
CUSTOMARY, MUSLIM,
• Section 23 of the marriages Act provides that;
parties to a Customary, Muslim, Hindu and other
religious marriages shall ensure that their
marriage is registered within 2 months of
contracting such marriages.
• The Registrar of marriages shall issue to the
spouses a certificate of registration, bearing the
prescribed particulars.
• Such a certificate constitute prima facie
evidence of the existence of such marriage
Registration of customary….
• Chiefs and Headman of record shall be
ex-officio registrars of customary
marriages in their respective areas of
jurisdiction.
Use of information for statistical
purposes
• The system of births and deaths is
computerized.
• To this extent this information can be
accessed by the statistics office.
• However, registration of marriages is still
manually processed hence hard copies on
the statistics on such have to be sent to
CSO for processing.
CHALLENGES- BIRTHS AND
DEATHS
• Cultural, religious and language barriers
especially for the remote area dwellers
• Community mobility/nomadic nature of some
communities.
• Difficulty in capturing home births and deaths
• Marriage registration not computerized.
• Incompleteness of either death of birth
notification forms from health institutions
• Weak collaborative effort between stakeholders
• Resource constraints
CHALLENGES CONT.
• Lack of awareness by customers on the
value to register vital events
• Birth registration is reported by UNICEF to
be at 52%
• The Department is not mandated by law to
register divorces. This is a gap in vital
events registration.
Way forward
• Established cooperation with UNICEF to
increase birth registration from 52%
• Recently (September) had a workshop
with Ministry of Health, Ministry of
Education, Ministry of Local Government
on how best to improve birth registration
and the need for them to demand Birth
certificates for people to access their
services.
Way forward
• Had submitted a request with the Minister
to consider waiving fee payment for a
specific period to encourage people to
register.
• Currently working on a communication
strategy intended to publicise our services,
importance thereof and underscore the
need to register such.
ACHIEVEMENTS
• Registration of births and deaths occurring in health
institutions
• Decentralization of registration services to all the 32
district offices
• Computerization of the births and deaths registration
• Interfacing of the births and deaths registration system
with the national identification system. Registration no. of
child becomes an identity no. of that child when the he
turns 16 years and becomes eligible for national Identity
card. Further, when a death of a citizen is registered the
BDRS automatically updates the NIS so that the status
of the individual changes from “live” to “dead”
ACHIEVEMENTS
• An established and comprehensive legal
framework that allows for compulsory and
universal recording of vital events.
• A firm civil service structure for service
delivery that allows registration of vital
events to have the characteristics of both
continuity and permanence.
CONCUSION
• The need to improve on stakeholder
coordination can greatly improve the
number of births and deaths captured as
well as the quality of the information
collected for informed policy formulation
and general programming.
• There is critical need to close the gap on
divorce registration.