Socio-cultural Factors and Birth Registration of Children in Gucha Sub-County, Kisii County, Kenya

Children hold a unique and privileged position in society. One of the obligations that state parties assume upon assenting to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of Children (ACR WC) is that of ensuring birth registration. The lack of trend data on birth registration in many countries makes it difficult to analyze progress at global and regional levels. However, in Kenya, the value of birth registration as a fundamental human right is often overlooked due to continuing lack of awareness that registration is a critical measure to secure the recognition of every person before the law, to safeguard his or her rights and to ensure that any violation of these rights does not go unnoticed. However, less is known about factors that influence low birth registration of children in Gucha Sub County. Thus, this study therefore, sought to examine social-cultural factors that influence low birth registration of children in Gucha Sub County. Specifically, the study examined social factors that influence low birth registration of children; explored cultural factors that influence low birth registration of children; and found out knowledge and attitude of parents towards birth registration in Gucha district. The study was guided by social exclusion theory by Jacques Delors (1955) and further advanced by other scholars. This theory helped in explaining why some parents and guardians failed to register their children despite the fact that there was international instrument's statement on children's right to identity. From a total population of 180,233 people aged 18 years and above in Gucha Sub County, 70 parents and guardians were simple randomly selected. Sixteen (16) key informants were purposively selected who included; 10 Local Chiefs, 4 Health Officers, ICivil Registrar of Births, and 1Children Officer were interviewed. The study population thus comprised parents or guardians or caregivers of Children who had registered or not registered births of their children and those that had acquired or not acquired birth certificates. The study used simple random sampling to get parents or guardians or caregivers from the twenty locations. Systematic random sampling was further used to get the sample size. The quantitative data was collected by the use of semi-structured questionnaires. Quantitative data were coded and analyzed using descriptive statistics by the help of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 12 and presented in tables of frequencies, and percentages. The qualitative data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. This involved going through the whole data collected, sentence by sentence, word by word, identifying recurring themes and coding them. From the --., study it emerged that the following have a bearing to low birth registration accessibility to health services, cost of birth registration, long distance to registration offices, cultural beliefs and practices, and level of education for parents! guardians. The study thus recommends that a mobile birth registration should be carried out through community mobilization to facilitate that of civil registration department. There is need to review existing birth registration system being implemented in the country with an aim of identifying areas where the system can be linked to better strategies to enable a timely and efficient birth registration process.