Birth Registration and Perceived Social Exclusion: Insights from Participants' Narratives

Abstract

Birth registration is becoming an important arena of political mobilisation for human rights. Discourses about civil registration advanced in the civil society and academic circles tend to frame birth registration in citizenship terms, arguing that (a) a birth certificate is indispensable in realising the child’s right to a name, nationality and citizenship, and (b) both the delay in registering and failure to register a child’s birth compound the social exclusion of that child. However, narratives that connect birth registration and social exclusion in a causal relationship are seldom premised on empirical evidence. Drawing on qualitative key informant interviews, this article examines how non-birth registration relates to social exclusion of children. Participants’ narratives generated in Zimbabwe’s Bindura District revealed that non-birth registration is entangled with multiple dimensions of social exclusion, potentially giving rise to marginalisation of children in various spheres of society.