Nuusita Ashipala
Eenyama
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 Party’s 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.