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Legal Monitor - Issue 121
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
November 28, 2011

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Women score against Mudede

Zimbabwean women have scored a major coup against a man forcing them to change their identities.

Thanks to the efforts of a brave woman, Fadeke Obatolu, Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede can no longer force married women to change their surnames as a condition for acquiring birth certificates for their children.

A recent consent order granted by High Court Judge Justice Martin Makonese means that days are over when provincial registrars from Mudede's office would refuse married women a chance to acquire birth certificates for their children without changing their surnames to those of their husbands.

"It is an important ruling for women," said Sarudzayi Njerere, the prominent human rights lawyer who helped Obatolu get the order.

Obatolu took the matter to court after Mudede's officers turned her husband away, stating Obatolu's failure to change her surname to her husband's as the reason for refusing to register the couple's newly born son.

The Attorney General's Office, represented by Tinei Dodo, consented that there was no legal basis for this action.

This resulted in Justice Makonese declaring that:

• There is no provision at law that compels married women to change their surnames to those of their husbands.
• The First Respondent (Mudede) shall not compel or require the Applicant (Obatolu) to change her surname to that of her husband before or after registering the birth of Applicant's child.

The joy of giving birth to a baby boy on 7 August last year turned into bureaucratic agony for Obatolu and her husband, Cowden Mutizwa, when the RG's Office insisted on Obatolu, a Zimbabwean citizen, changing her surname to Mutizwa.

Trouble started when Cowden visited Mount Pleasant District Registry to procure a birth certificate for his son.

"He was advised to bring my national registration card. When he returned, armed with my national registration card he was asked if I was a citizen of Zimbabwe. I believe First Respondent is obliged to register all births that occur in Zimbabwe notwithstanding the citizenship of the mother," reads Obatolu's court application.

When Cowden returned to the registry for the third time on 25 October last year, two men, a Mr Marufu and Mr Zuze informed him that Obatolu had to change her surname to Mutizwa "before the birth of the child could be registered."

Two days later, Obatolu went to Mount Pleasant District Registry and spoke to Marufu and Zuze who stood by their stance that she changes her surname first.

"I would then have to apply for and obtain a new registration card and passport. I would also have to change my banking cards. All my education certificates and even my certification of registration as a legal practitioner are in my surname. I can imagine the nightmare should I apply for a job using a surname foisted upon me by First Respondent," said Obatolu in her application.

"I believe I am, in terms of the Constitution, entitled to equal protection of the law. The law gives me a right to obtain a birth certificate for my son. The First Respondent is unlawfully tampering with this right by trying to force me to assume my husband's surname. The First Respondent has a constitutional duty to discharge his functions in accordance with the law. I believe he is in breach of his constitutional obligations not only to me but to the masses of women whom he summarily compels to assume the surnames of their husbands," said Obatolu in her application.

Obatolu's victory will come as a major relief to married women who were being turned away by Mudede's officers as they will now be able to rely on this precedent.

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