Birth Certificates in Kenya: Father’s name cannot be listed without his permission unless he is married to the mother?

It appears that there is a case (or at least there was in Dec. 2014) before the High Court of Kenya challenging Section 12 of the Birth and Deaths Registration Act.  Sections 12 of the said acts reads:

No person shall be entered in the register as the father of any child except either at the joint request of the father and mother or upon the production to the registrar of such evidence as he may require that the father and mother were married according to law or, in accordance with some recognized custom.

For the complete text of the Births and Death Registration Act (Cap. 149) click on the image below:

A reporter, Kamau Muthoni, writing for the Standard (digital version) newspaper wrote an article regarding the Kenyan woman who, with her attorney, initiated the litigation:

Mother wants child named after reluctant dad (Dec. 22, 2014)

The woman’s name was not released because the litigation involves a minor. Apparently the woman in this case is a mother of a four (4) years of age child (daughter).

Evidently the case was filed against the Attorney General of Kenya  Githu Muigai and the Registrar of Births and Deaths.

Attorney General Githu Muigai was born (1960) the year before Barack Obama (1961) and like Obama he also has a degree, LL.M. – Master of Laws (1986), from Columbia University in New York.

Sources regarding Muigai graduating from Columbia University:

(a) Business Daily (Africa): Parliament to vet three nominees for top public offices, by Muna Wahome. August 24, 2011.

(b) Mohammed Muigai Advocates (Commissioners of Oaths and Notaries Public):  The Chambers Global Guide 2011, by Mohammedmuigai.com. 2011.

Githu Muigai assumed office of Attorney General of Kenya on or about August 27, 2011.

It appears that the Kenyan woman (unnamed) who brought the litigation in the High Court of Kenya is not married to the father of the child nor was she married to him at the time of the child’s birth.

Evidently the father in this case doesn’t want to be listed on the birth certificate. As he was never married to the mother, he can, by law, choose to not allow his name to be entered on the birth certificate of his daughter.

As the law currently reads it appears that even if the mother had DNA evidence which indicated that this man is the father of her child she would still not be permitted to have his name entered on the birth certificate.

From what I can ascertain there are many children in Kenya, born out of wedlock, whose birth certificates list the letters XXXXX in lieu of a father’s name.

To be clear here, it doesn’t appear that the father is denying that he is the biological father of the child.  The issue here is that he doesn’t want his name to be listed on the birth certificate.  Moreover, the current law appears to be on his side.

It seems that the father doesn’t want the child to be officially recognized (e.g., surname and family rights) as his own.

In an affidavit the unnamed mother stated, “I remember at one time my daughter asking me who her dad was and imagined that since she had started school she could hear other children talk about their family and realised she is missing something. Indeed, the child’s family tree has a loosely hanging dead branch if they do not know their father.”

Some of us Americans might assume that the word ‘realised’ in the affidavit was misspelled by the unnamed mother, her attorney or by the reporter at the Standard.

I don’t know why but a lot of us Americans think that America, a country which declared their independence in 1776, or less than only 240 years ago, invented everything, including the English language.

I don’t know exactly why (I’ve read several different opinions/theories – feel free to cite yours in comments section and pretend that whatever you just picked up from your particular online source is truth) but at some point Americans started swapping the “z” for “s” in many words.  In British English “realise” (with an s) is still the preferred, and most common, spelling.

However, in the spirit of accuracy, I believe that “realize” (with a z) may have been in use, in other parts of the world (perhaps including inside of England?), at least to some small degree, many years before the United States was a country.  I’m not for certain, but if you really need to know please find out and (with at least some evidence) let us here at WOBIK know what you found.

It seems that there’s a big problem in America today with the English language.  White Americans have been altering the English language for a long time now, often simplifying it while at other times pretending, academically, to create rules for a true, grammatically correct and authorized version of English.

Yet when black Americans spell a word differently or pronounce it with varied pronunciation some of us think that it is they (i.e., black Americans) who are altering and knocking down the English language or that they are mentally deficient or that they are just wholly uneducated and ignorant.

Another argument made within the litigation is that if there aren’t records (birth certificates) of who the fathers are that this could lead to children marrying their siblings (which is a crime punishable with a 5 year prison sentence in Kenya).

Marrying a sibling because you didn’t know that they were your sibling might sound odd to most of us Americans.  However, it’s not. I’ve seen trouble like this in the Dominican Republic.

Perhaps one of the long lasting impacts of the Protestant strand (?) of the fabric of America is that it’s made sex a bad, bad very bad thing in our world.

Up until at least the year 2005 there was a law in Virginia against unmarried people having sex: Any person, not being married, who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any other person, shall be guilty of fornication, punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor.

Supposedly the Virginia Supreme Court decision,  Martin v. Ziherl,  607 S.E.2d 367 (Va. 2005), held that the Virginia criminal law against fornication was unconstitutional (citing SCOTUS in  Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) which struck down sodomy laws in Texas).

However, the Virginia sex law still shows up in 2015 online in the Code of Virginia:

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-344

It’s not like this everywhere in the world.  Sex isn’t an inherently bad thing nor is having it with many people, or having it many times in a single day.  There’s also nothing wrong with marrying and having sex with just that one person.  It’s a personal preference and a person can make their own decisions on how exactly to conduct their sexual life.

To put things in perspective many Americans (and most certainly Europeans) are automatically considered as gay (homosexual, or at least bisexual), by the locals, when vacationing in some places in Africa, South and Central America.  I suppose it’s a just a stereotype but its based on long standing cultural differences regarding sex.

Any any rate, let’s get back to the story regarding the unnamed mother’s (and her attorney’s) position that if there aren’t records (birth certificates) which contain the names of the fathers that this could lead to children growing up and marrying their siblings (which in Kenya is a crime punishable with what appears to be up to a 5 year prison sentence).

I understand unnamed mother’s (and her attorney’s) position. I’m not saying that I am for it or against it, but I do understand.

What I do know is that there are men in the Dominican Republic who have dozens of children, often within in the same city. When these children reach a certain age their fathers sometimes, for the first time, tell them about their other brothers and sisters so that they will not, innocently, sleep with them (not knowing that they are siblings).

The unnamed mother’s case has also attracted the attention of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission and also the Law Society of Kenya.

One attorney referred to as Chigiti (this Chigiti John Mugwimi?) stated that, “There is no way the child can know his or her condition like high blood pressure, diabetes or possibilities of suffering from chronic illness which stems from the father’s condition if he does not know who the father is.”

I’m not sure how I feel about Chigiti’s remark. He’s starting to sound somewhat like Alvin Onaka in Hawaii (from non-Birther stuff I’ve read about him).

In any event, I’ve linked Kamau Muthoni’s (reporter writing from the Standard newspaper in Kenya) article in the foregoing and here it is again for those who are interested:

Mother wants child named after reluctant dad (Dec. 22, 2014)

I take no sides in this case and only offer it here for review at WOBIK because it helps us all understand that the rules and laws regarding birth certificates in Kenya and within the United States are very different.  Skeptics, as well as readers who are impartial, should take that into consideration when reviewing Barack Hussein Obama II’s 1961 (2009 certified copy) Coast Province General Hospital, Mombasa, British Protectorate of Kenya, Certificate of Birth.

Lastly, the postcard presented at the head of today’s report features what is printed in text on the card as being a Swahili woman (with her baby being carried on her back) in British East Africa.  The postcard was stamped and postmarked (Nairobi) July 24, 1921.

We chose this particular image because today’s report is about an unnamed mother and her young child in Kenya.

However, please make note of the date format used on the postmarks:  JU 24 1921

Most postmarks that you find on mail, postcards and letters from British East Africa and Colonial Kenya would have been listed as:  24 JU 1921

Does the unusual date format make this postcard (or at least the postmark on it) a forgery?

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