The Department for Community Development is mandated to administer the Civil Registration Act Chapter 304 of 1976 through the Civil Registry Office, established to perform the statutory function of recording vital events as these occur. One of the few universal (total) registration systems in a country is the Civil Registration System.
Civil Registration is a continuous, permanent, compulsory recording of the occurrence of a change in the vital events in an individual’s social civil status according to law. The occurrence of changes considered as vital events are Live Birth, Fetal Birth (Dead born), Marriage, Divorce, Judicial Separation of Marriage, Adoption, Legitimisation and Recognition.
The primary objective of the system is to produce legal documents required by Law, which are officially and universally recognised and accepted. These documents are a Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate and Death Certificate. The system records information on a continuous and permanent basis as vital events occur, regardless of the time of information collection. In so doing, a civil registration system safeguards the human right to individual civil status and benefits and protects fraudulent use against these benefits.
The key functions of Civil Registration are:
Legalising individual civil status through
Gathering, screening and recording individuals vital events as these occur
Preserving the record in a computer database and hard copy in archives
Providing Certificates to eligible parties
Production of Vital Statistics
Continuous collection of information on vital events is useful for legal, administrative, health studies and statistical purpose.
The Office of the Civil Registration has carried out work in 2006 in provinces including Western Highlands, Eastern Highlands, Simbu, Western, East Sepik, Morobe, East New Britain, Milne Bay, Central and National Capital District, as the Office is involved in a significant process of decentralising civil registration processes.
Currently, the Office is working on registering births of every child in the country.
Civil Registry has achieved a number of activities in the last year. These include:
Working in partnership with the Education Department to register one million children
Decentralising civil registration processes to 10 provinces
Reducing the unregistered birth rates from 97 % to 40 % in NCD for children only
In the coming year, Civil Registry intends to achieve:
Registering 100 % of children in the country
To have all 20 civil registration offices fully functional i.e. to fully decentralise all civil registration processes; and
To have birth registration accessible through churches and hospitals, a process that has already started with the signing of a historic memorandum of understanding with the Port Moresby General Hospital.
Attached the Birth Registration form in the website
For further information, please contact Registrar General at the National Civil Registry Office, P.O Box 470, Waigani, NCD, Telephone: 323 9973, Fax: 323 1056, Email: registrygeneral@pngfamilies.gov.pg
