Following success of last year’s campaign that saw more than 500,000 children registered, the Government is now gearing up to ease the process by harmonising child registration with the national identity programme, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Local Government has said.

Odette Uwamariya said this while participating at a stakeholders meeting that brought together government, civil society and development partners to review the progress made in attaining the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations.

UPR is a unique mechanism of the Human Rights Council (HRC) aimed at improving the human rights situation in each of the 193 United Nations member states.

The month-long campaign aimed at having more children registered to enable the Government to plan and avail them vital services, and saw 511,000 children registered countrywide. 

At the Kigali meeting yesterday, Uwamariya said that while all local government authorities had been encouraged to take the process seriously, the focus was now on modernising and integrating the available systems so that it’s easier for all parents to register their children.

"We are focusing on the modernisation of the civil registry, integrating the available systems and linking it with the national ID programme to reduce the procedures involved so that when a child is born anywhere in this country, they are immediately registered without necessarily going through many channels,” she said.

According to the 2014/15 Demographic and Health Survey, the status of birth registration in Rwanda shows that only 56 per cent of children were notified at the sector Civil Registration and Notary Services in 2015.

The statistics show a decline from 83 per cent in 2005 and 63 per cent in 2010, which was blamed on the legal status of parents that hampers many from registering their children.

The current registration system does not cater for special cases such as unwanted pregnancies, informally married couples, and juvenile births.

Uwamariya also touched on funds allocated to vulnerable people, saying the Government and its development partners were working hand-in-hand to see that the current momentum in poverty eradication is maintained.

"Sixteen per cent of the population still live under the poverty line but we are optimistic because looking at the trend in the last few years, so many households have graduated from poverty thanks to combined efforts of the Government and its partners. Our target for 2017-2019 is to reduce the number to 9 per cent and, in 2020, we look forward to going to zero per cent,” she said.

Talking about the Universal Periodic Review recommendations, the Minister for Justice, Johnston Busingye, told participants that the follow-up phase is critical, pointing out that government would find it harder to deliver without the input of the civil society and other development partners.

"We will continue to prioritise inclusive participation and transparency as indispensable elements of the process. We are aware that it’s government’s obligation to protect, promote and preserve human rights but if non-governmental organisations did not show up to work with us, it would be a heavier obligation. Working on this with all willing stakeholders will result in a report that is broadly objective and agreeable,” he said.

This particular review follows the one done in November 2015, where 67 recommendations accepted by Rwanda in 2011 were looked at. During the second review, Rwanda accepted 50 recommendations to be implemented in four years.

Busingye said that in September 2016, the Ministry of Justice, together with other public institutions and civil society, adopted a roadmap to implement the 50 recommendations that the Government had accepted.

He added that yesterday’s meeting sought to evaluate progress in the implementation of that matrix six months after it was shared with concerned institutions.

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