Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable - Unicef

Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable children in SA
often complicated by the lateness of the registration of the birth, which requires additional
supporting documents. Unlike in predominantly urban areas, many of the births are not
hospital or clinic births, but home births. As such, there is no formal hospital-issued birth
notification certificate, which would suffice as proof of the birth of the baby for the purpose
of registering the birth. In the absence of a birth notification certificate, the application for
birth registration must be supported by a Road to Health/Clinic Card. Getting a Road to
Health Card is a barrier. Some of the clinics will not, for a variety of reasons, give the child/
caregiver a Clinic Card until the child is due for its first immunisation (at six weeks). This
introduces delays into the registration process. Some clinic staff do not see the intrinsic
and valuable link between birth registration (and subsequent access to grants and other
services) and child well-being, which is precisely what the Road to Health Card is designed
to facilitate and monitor. In addition, because the Road to Health Card is regarded by the
DoHA as a legal document, any mistake made by the clinic staff on the Card will invalidate
it for use as a registration supporting document (Giese & Smith 2007).
The need for proof of paternal identity for the registration of the birth is another
aggravating factor. If the parents wish to register the baby with the name of the father,
but the mother and father are not married, then the father must be present at Home
Affairs when the birth is registered. This introduces delays in the registration process,
especially when the father lives away from home, for example as a migrant labourer.
Traditional/cultural naming practices and processes in rural areas, which delay the naming of
the baby, contribute to delayed registrations and the resultant documentation complications.
If mothers do not have an identity document, the registration of the birth of their baby is
delayed. The birth registration Regulations require proof of maternal identity to register
a baby’s birth. In the case of mothers (often those that are younger than 16) who have
not yet obtained their identity documents, the registration of the birth is delayed until the
mother has done so. In some cases the grandmother registers the baby, identifying herself
as the mother (Giese & Smith 2007). The latter practice is unlawful and itself causes
further complications and delays further down the road when the mother does obtain an
identity document and wishes to register the baby with her name.
The DoHA is recognised as a key partner in the integrated model of service delivery that
is contained in the NIP for ECD. However, a review of coordinating structures set up by
government to address the comprehensive needs of vulnerable children revealed that the
DoHA was not, at the time of the review, represented on the National Interdepartmental
Committee for ECD, which is responsible for the planning and implementation of the NIP
for ECD (Giese & Sanders 2008). This represents a missed opportunity to address the gap
in the early registration of babies within the context of an integrated service delivery plan.
Children affected by HIV/AIDS
Many of the difficulties associated with birth registrations and accessing enabling
documents are aggravated in the context of HIV/AIDS. Poverty levels, maternal illness,
death and increased child mobility in AIDS-affected communities leaves many children
without supporting documents and/or the adults required to register their births.
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