On December
5th, in Lilongwe, the Interior Minister of Malawi and the Community
of Sant’Egidio signed the memorandum of Understanding for the implementation of
the BRAVO! Program in Malawi during an official ceremony
attended by many officials, members of the National Registration Bureau and
Malawian representatives of the Community of Sant’Egidio.
The registration
of births, marriages and deaths in Malawi is compulsory by the National
Registration Act of 2010. Now the Government wants to implement it with the
support of stakeholders working for the promotion of fundamental rights, and in
particular the rights of children.
It is
estimated that only 10% of the population hold the birth certificate. This
agreement is therefore an important step forward for Malawi. For the newly
elected President, Peter Mutarika, the civil registration is a priority, and he
put it among the programmatic points of
the presidency during the assignment speech.
Since many years
the Community of Sant’Egidio included the birth registration among the actions
for the protection of thousands of children, that are helped through the DREAM
Program, the School of Peace, the distance adoptions throughout Malawi, to
ensure to all the legal identity and to defend them from human trafficking,
child labour, early marriage and all form of exploitation.
The BRAVO!
Program will support the registration of the whole population of Malawi,
starting from the rural district of Balaka. The Program has shown in recent
years, in Burkina Faso and Mozambique, to have developed an effective strategy
to reach people living in villages. Indeed, BRAVO! is considered a best
practice at continental level also for being able to deal successfully with one
of the most problematic issue of the African states: the registration of the
population living in rural areas.
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