CIBITOKE, April 30th (ABP) – In a press release read out in various churches in Cibitoke province on 20 and 21 April 2024, the provincial governor, Câreme Bizoza, called on parents who had not registered their children’s births within the statutory deadlines to do so during that grace period for late birth registration, running from 15 April to 15 May 2023.
Governor Bizoza referred to correspondence from the Minister of the Interior, asking them to instruct communal administrators to grant a period of grace, so that they can do so without paying a fine. He urged them to make a long broadcast, pointing out that after that period, latecomers would be punished in accordance with the law.
According to Taoussi Mpawenimana, Provincial Controller of Civil Status, refusals to register births are still being observed in Cibitoke province.
Moreover, in most cases only mothers register births, whereas the law requires fathers to fulfil that obligation. For that reason, from January 2024 to the end of March, 4,113 births were registered late with the Civil Registry throughout the province, according to the official. 862 births were registered in January 2024; 2,317 in February; and 934 in March, according to the same source.
As for the registration of children of unknown fathers, the provincial controller did not mince words in declaring that there is no such thing as a child without a father, but that to simplify matters, a gap should be left or sticks put in the place of the father, until he is identified and known.
Mrs Mpawenimana urged local government officials and religious denominations to sensitise the population to respond en masse to the current campaign to register all births with the Civil Registry.