Namibia Home Affairs Encourages Child-Naming Before Birth

Source: New Era (Windhoek), 26/04/2017

Eenyama â€" Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration Pendukeni
Iivula-Ithana has urged parents particularly fathers to name their
babies before they are born to enable delivering mothers to register
their children at birth.


The pre-birth naming is also necessary to ensure that absent fathers
do not hinder babies from being registered at birth and subsequently
deny them a chance of acquiring national documents.


All newborn babies should be registered before birth so they get birth
certificates immediately after birth Iivula-Ithana said.


Speaking at the Swapo Partys 57th celebration at Eenyama in Ohangwena
Region recently she said the ministry is aware of the difficulties
some individuals encounter in acquiring national documents but the
minister encouraged them to take up the responsibility of acquiring
national documents.


The minister further said the Bill on the conferment of Namibian
citizenship on Angolans residing in Namibia from 1978 to 1989 is in
the pipeline. Equally the ministry is also busy with the Uniform
Matrimonial Regime Bill which aims to unify the marital regime in the
country.


Currently marriages beyond the Red Line fall under a different marital
regime which we aim to remove so that we will only have once civil
marital regime Iivula-Ithana said.


Further the minister encouraged the community to desist from creating
a permanent culture of dependency on drought-aid from
government.


From here the community drought relief [dependency] must be kicked in
the butt. We are a community known as hard workers and this culture
must be maintained as our inheritance from our forebears Iivula-Ithana
said.


With the good rains this year Iivula-Ithana noted that some farmers
have worked for a bumper harvest but was disappointed to see that some
crop fields are still untilled.


Iivula-Ithana also said government is deeply concerned about patterns
of gender-based violence in the country and appealed to citizenry to
inculcate a culture of peace love and respect for one another.
That is the only way we build a strong united nation in the Land of
the Brave she said.