Gigaba drives early birth-registration process
THE Department of Home Affairs has urged parents to register their children 30 days after giving birth.
The department on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding with consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble in a bid to raise awareness around the Early Registration of Birth campaign at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital.
According to Minister Malusi Gigaba, the campaign’s main objective is to promote advocacy and mobilise citizens around early birth registration at grassroots level, in prenatal clinics, and in maternity wards across the country.
Gigaba took a tour of the hospital’s maternity ward, where he spoke to pregnant women about the importance of early birth registration. He also issued a number of birth certificates to women who recently gave birth.
Dedre Hlakula, 32, with her new born daughter Vuyolethu, said this campaign would help to ease the transition from pregnancy into motherhood.
Hlakula said this was one less responsibility for new mothers to worry about.
“After my first birth I had to go to Home Affairs after three days to get the certificate,” she said. “One of the challenges I had was that there was a spelling error on the card that recorded the birth, forcing me to return to Bara for them to go through their records to fix it.”
The mother-of-two said it took a whole day to rectify.
“This time it was quick. There were no queues,” Hlakula said.
One of the women Gigaba spoke to praised the department for its efforts.
Nina Lehodi, 27, told The Star she was pleased with this campaign, specifically because she went through the same process with her first child.
“When my daughter was born four years ago, I didn’t have to wait in a queue because I got her birth certificate at the hospital,” she said.
“All I needed was my identity book and the card of birth, and my child’s birth certificate was issued,” Lehodi said.
During his 2015 budget vote, Gigaba announced that the department would be bringing an end to late registration of births, after which all late applications for birth would go through an appeal and adjudication process.
Following the announcement, the department intensified the ongoing national cam- paign.
“We don’t like seeing mothers in long queues at our departments,” the minister said.