LESOTHO Civil Registration

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LESOTHOCivil Registration Vital statistics
System

• Prepared
• by
• M. Likoti M. Makoa

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Introduction

• Vital events are regulated under the following
• Legal frameworks
• Births and death Act 1973
• Marriage Act 1974
• Statistics Act 2001
• Local Government Act 1997
• Policies orphaned and vulnerable children 2006
• UN Convention on the rights of the child
• The MDGs
• The African charter on the rights of the child

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Partnerships linkages

• Implementing supporting institutions are
• Ministry of Local Government (Department of
  Births and deaths)
• Ministry of Finance and development Planning (
  Bureau of Statistics)
• Ministry of Health Social Welfare ( Department
  of Social Welfare)
• Other agencies (Development partners private
  sectors)

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Background

• Civil registration is coordinated in the Office
  of Registrar of births and deaths.
• Production of Vital statistics report is the
  responsibility of DLSS division at BOS.
• Information on the occurrence of births , deaths,
  marriages and divorces, as well as relevant
  characteristics of the events and of the persons
  concerned is collected from the districts.
• The information is manually entered, compiled,
  analyzed, and disseminated in a statistical form
  by the BOS.

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Procedure

• Early registration- event reported within a year
  of occurrence ( no fees paid)
• Late registration event reported after a year
  of occurrence (penalty fee of M4.00)
• Orphan registration- 0 18 years

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Procedure cont

• Report an event to the village Chief where
  notification forms will be filled in triplicate.
• The forms should be transmitted to the DAs
  office for authorization and issuance of
  certificate.
• Orphan are registered with the village chief or
  community councilor

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Information derived from the forms

• BIRTHS
• Name, District, village,
• ward, sex, date of birth where it occurred,
  occupation and nationality of the father, age of
  the mother, number of children ever born and
  their survival status etc

• DEATHS
• Name, District, village,
• ward, sex, date of death, occupation and
  nationality of the father, age at death and cause
  of death etc.

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Information derived from the forms cont

• Marriages
• Name of parties, District of solemnization,
  age sex marital status of the bride and groom,
  date of solemnization, type of marriage and
  marriage banns

• Divorces
• Name of parties, Age, sex, educational level,
  place of residence occupation of the plaintiff
  defendant, type, date duration of marriage,
  date when divorce was granted reasons for
  divorce

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Information derived from the forms cont

• Orphans vulnerable children
• District, village, Age, sex, educational and
  residential status of the child, survival status
  of parents and socio-economic background
  characteristics of the parents.

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Current status

• The MoLGC is the custodian of civil registration
  system.
• BOS collects, compiles, analyses and disseminates
  statistics on births and deaths only, but have
  just started collecting information on marriages
  divorces.
• DSW is the custodian of orphaned and vulnerable
  children registration.

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How the forms reach the BOS

• The forms are filled in triplicate by the Chiefs
  in the villages.
• The forms are then sent to the District
  Administrators (DAs) in the district for
  authorization, production and issuance of
  certificates and the chief remains with one form.
• One of the forms from the DAs office is sent to
  the BOS for manual data entry.

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Challenges

• Accessibility-Services are provided in the
  administrative centres only.
• Some forms reach the DAs office only when the
  chief has some official matter to attend to at
  the DAs office.
• The BOS method of retrieval of the forms not
  systematic. Focus mainly on agric statistics
• Codes to be imputed for causes of death remains a
  big challenge.
• Under coverage-Reporting rate still very low,
  hence information can hardly be used for
  population estimates.

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Challenges cont

• Understaffed offices both at headquarters and
  district offices.
• Non reporting on early registration
• Inadequate financial resources.
• Dependence on ITPD division for production of
  tables also hinders progress

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Achievements

• Computerized system as of 2003.
• Decentralized services as of 2000.

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FUTURE PLANS

• To develop a comprehensive partnership strategy
  of improving reporting of these vital events.
• Start analyzing information on marriages and
  divorces.
• Start collecting information on OVCs.
• Publish the reports on a yearly basis.
• Strengthen advocacy and mobilization
• Capacity building of statisticians Chiefs and
  community councilors
• Enactment of the CPW Bill

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Thank You for your Attention !!!
P.O Box 455 Maseru. 100
00266-22323852 (BOS) 00266-22315004(MOLGC)

E-mail demography_at_bos.gov.ls
mathusolikoti_at_yahoo.com Web site www.bos.gov.ls