Civil Registration Status in Swaziland

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Civil Registration Status in Swaziland

• Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs
  and Central Statistics Office
• Mr. A.Y. Masilela- Registrar of Births, Marriages
  and Deaths
• Ms. T. Vilane- Statistician

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BACKGROUND

• Small country covering an area of 17,364.4 square
  kilometres
• Population size of 1,018,449
• Four distinct geographical regions, each with its
  own climate and characteristics
• The Swazi people are homogenous group of people
  sharing a common language and tradition
• The country is classified as a low income
  developing country
• The country was once a British protectorate and
  gained her independence in September 6, 1968

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CIVIL REGISTRATION BACKGROUND

• Was first introduced in May 1927 and was
  mandatory to European and Coloured races
• It was further extended and made compulsory to
  all races in 1971
• The legal basis of the current Civil Registration
  is the BMD Act of 1983 and Regulations
  replacing the 1927 Act

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• The Civil Registration is the mandate of the
  MOJCA/RGO/BMDs
• The Registration of vital events is decentralized
• The mandate is now being shifted from the MOJCA
  to the MOHA

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Compilation of vital statistics from Civil
Registration System.

• No, but the C.S.O. does compile vital statistics
  from Civil Registration System as per the
  Statistics Act of 1967.
• The C.S.O. tallies the vital events records by
  area and region of registration and according to
  whether registration was current or late

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• this operation was long abandoned due to the
  following reasons
• a. due to smallness of the registered
  events at the time
• b. the system of processing the data
  was rather too manual
• c. the limited number of statisticians
  assigned to this task were also assigned
  other tasks

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Factors hampering the production of vital
statistics from Civil Registration in Swaziland

• Serious Human Resource problems ranging from
  staff compliment to calibre
• General apathy to the Civil Registration system
  (Civil Registration is not a priority in
  Government)
• a. whereby people do not take the
  initiative to register the events in the
  prescribed time period

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• b. whereby Government is indifferent
  towards the institutions that register vital
  events
• c. whereby the other stakeholders do not co-
  operate in terms of playing their role and
  thus lead to under allocation of funds or
  delay in disbursing or diverting the funds
  elsewhere
• d. apathy among the registration staff which
  leads to inefficiency and errors in the data
  collection
• e. public illiteracy or ignorance
• f. absence of steering committee on Civil
  Registration and vital statistics

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Plans to improve the Civil Registration and Vital
Statistics System in Swaziland

• Upgrading the Civil Registration or BMD section
  into a Department
• Automation of the manual Civil Registration
  system introduction of PIN and national ID
  cards (population register system)

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• Improving accessibility as well as ensuring
  affordability of registration services through
  joining hands with development partners (UNICEF)
• Plans to set up statistical unit within the CR
  department
• Legal reform all CR related legislations
• Coverage will be ascertained in the report of the
  census conducted in 2007

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