Development Community (SADC). This provision could potentially resolve the nationality situation of the vast majority of former farm or mine workers in the country. Since 2012 the Government of Zimbabwe, through the Office of the Registrar General, has been carrying out occasional missions to the Tongogara Refugee Camp to issue birth certificates to refugee children. In 2015, the Government issued birth certificates to 147 refugee children. A total of 556 males and 438 females received new identity cards and an additional 92 males and 47 females renewed their ID cards. In 2013, the Government of Zimbabwe acceded to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime of 15 November 2000 (the Palermo Convention). Zimbabwe enacted the enabling municipal law, the Trafficking in Persons Act Chapter 10:20, in 2014 through a Presidential proclamation published in the Statutory Instrument number 4 of 2014. The enactment deals with the prohibition, prevention and prosecution of crimes of trafficking and protection of victims. III. KEY PROTECTION ISSUES, CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS Challenges linked to outstanding 1st cycle UPR recommendations Issue 1: Birth registration Linked to 1st cycle UPR recommendation no. 94.30: “Amend expeditiously the Births and Deaths Registration Act to ensure that all children born in Zimbabwe, regardless of their parents’ origin, are issued with birth certificates (Slovakia)”. Birth registration is critical to prevent statelessness, since it establishes a legal record of where a child was born and who his or her parents are. In addition, it represents a significant proof of whether a person has acquired nationality by birth or by descent. While the Government of Zimbabwe has taken some positive steps, as presented in the Second Periodic Report, to ensure birth registration for children, the overall birth registration situation in the country needs an improvement. In 2008, the birth registration rate for Zimbabwe was only 42 per cent (56 per cent in urban areas and 35 per cent for rural areas).23 In fact, a comparison of the 2005-06 Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS) with the 2010-11 ZDHS revealed that the percentage of children under the age of 5 whose births were registered had dropped sharply from 74 per cent to 49 per cent.4 More recently, the 2014 Zimbabwe Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) indicated that only 32.3% children under the age of 5 were reported as being registered. Significant measures are therefore needed to attain universal birth registration in Zimbabwe. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) et al Strategic Analysis in Civil Registration in the Context of HIV and AIDS, 2008, p24. 3 JIMAT Development Consultants Programme of Support for the National Plan for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children: Outcome Assessment Final Report, 19 May 2010, p23-4. 4 Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, Harare and ICF International Inc., Maryland USA Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey 2010 – 2011, available at: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/78907455/201011%20Zimbabwe%20DHS%20Final%20Report.pdf; see also, Research & Advocacy Unit, A Right or a Privilege? Access to Identity and Citizenship in Zimbabwe, November 2008, p6, which estimates that “nearly a third of all children do not possess a birth certificate”. 2 3