Even in “complicated” situations, It’s always possible to give the registration’s right for every child!

Coming from Inhambane, a small subsistence farming family settled in the neighborhood of Zintava, Marracuene district of Maputo.

Is about Azarias Manhice and his wife Belita Chissico, who, following the fire that completely destroyed their residence, were forced to move from their homeland to Maputo in search of sustainable conditions for their family.

The flames that caused massive damage took the Manhice family to lose everything, including their identifications documents, among others. Arriving in Maputo in 2016, life had to continue and in this process, a special event brought joy to the family - when a female child was born, named Claudia Azarias Fernando Manhice.

As has been the perception of many people, Azarias Manhice found himself restricted to provide Cláudia's right to register and explains “I lost my documents when my house caught fire in Inhambane. With that, looking for job opportunities, I went to Maputo. And here, I always thought it was complicated to proceed with my daughter's registration, because to do so, I would have to return to my home province in order to recover the lost documents”.

On the one hand, the registration of children is strongly affected by the difficulties linked to the lack of documentation and costs related to the acquisition of the parents' documentation. And in turn the limited knowledge of birth declaration procedures is another challenge.

Luckily for the Manhice family, the little Cláudia, who is now eleven (11) months old, was registered already in the fifth month, shortly after the free registration period (four months), as a result of the mobilization work carried out with the communities, through home visits. Part of the resources adopted under the Government of Mozambique initiative, funded by Government of Canada through UNICEF and with the support of Save the Children and partners, to enlighten people about the importance of birth registration.

"One day when I was at home, we were visited by a group of activists. We had such an interesting conversation, to the point of getting clarification on how to register a child, even if it is in apparently complicated situations, such as ours", says head of household.

From the interaction that the family had with community mobilization agents, it became known that, even having lost documents as a result of fire that destroyed their residence, there can always be a way to realize the child’s rights.

In fact, Azarias Fernando Manhice demanded of his conscience and realized that the information shared by the activists really made a sense. Therefore, “enlightened and encouraged by the activists, I immediately sought to provide for my daughter's right. I registered her, upon presentation of the voter card, the only document I have at the moment”, and not only. Azarias Manhice sought to ensure that his eldest daughter who already had a newborn with him would also register immediately before the free registration period passed.

For more information, please contact:

Vieira Cumbi
Tel: +258 82 06 75 714
Email: vieira.cumbi@savethechildren.org