So much anguish from so small a document

What the Government is doing to desperate parents countrywide should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

The way things are going it increasingly looks like parents are being punished for not having birth certificates for their children.

March 31 is the deadline for candidates to register for the Kenya National Certificate of Secondary Education examinations. Unfortunately, students who have no birth certificates are likely to miss registration after four years of hard work through no fault of their own, because they do not have birth certificates.

Many are suffering severe stress, having been sent home to get this important piece of paper, and not knowing whether they will ever sit the national exams for which they have been studying all these years. To say this will be devastating to them is to put it mildly.

Those in charge of providing birth certificates are even turning away single mothers to go and look for the fathers of their offspring, before they can be attended to.

Hundreds of orphans whose parents died before getting for them birth certificates are also frustrated, even after their foster parents have provided the death certificates and birth notifications where these are available.

Happily married

If this is not outright discrimination, then the Bill of Rights needs to be rewritten. In many cases, some mothers have no idea who the father of their child may be, and even where they do, they probably have no idea of their location since they probably parted ways years ago under less than amicable circumstances.

They now have to face the humiliation of tracing these individuals, some of them happily married, and begging them to bail them out of their predicament.

The Government has made the process of getting a birth certificate so cumbersome; it has unwittingly opened the door for corruption to thrive.

The Press has been awash lately with stories of so-called ‘brokers’ being arrested after swindling hapless parents of cash with false promises that they can secure the document for them through ‘other means’.

In hindsight, the decision to link KCSE registration to birth certificates was a terrible idea because it was not well thought out. The time given was limited and because there were already problems with the issuance of the documents even before the new rule, things could only get worse.

Poor parents are travelling miles to Government offices and spending the little cash they have, only to be turned away time and again.

Why couldn’t the Government have delayed implementation of the new rule to next year to give parents time to get their children’s papers in order and also to streamline the requirements for getting birth certificates?

It is heartrending to watch the long chaotic queues, and parents who have hit a dead end, tired and desperate with no idea what to tell their children when they return empty-handed.

Some of these officials are rude, arrogant and unhelpful.

And it is not just ‘brokers’ who are having a field day, but officials as well, with many squeezing money from parents who would rather their families missed a meal than their child’s four year’s of study to count for nothing.

A birth certificate is a right and not a priviledge. The fact that Kenya has poorly policed, porous borders is not enough reason for the Government to subject its citizens, including those who pay taxes, to such treatment.

The rules for registering births are out of touch with the new laws, which bans all forms discrimination. Much of Kenya’s population, like most African countries, is still predominantly rural.

Vital services

Most births occur at home with the help of a midwife and there are many areas where parents have never heard of birth certificates.

Those lucky enough to live near clinics or health centres receive immunisation cards for their children that also has their names as parents, although the midwives who delivered their babies do not issue birth notifications.

Those who are married are lucky, but for single parents, short of getting a letter from the village chief acknowledging their paternity, or going to a lawyer to swear an affidavit, what options do they have?

And why is it that under the same laws that guarantee equal rights to all regardless of gender, women are still being discriminated against when it comes to getting access to vital services?

The Government should review the rules under which Department of Civil Registration is issuing birth certificates, if only to allow candidates to register for KCSE. That is the right thing to do.