Do You Need To Register Marriage On Tunisia Birth Certifcate

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to provide a cursory introduction to the civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems in Tunisia. This data was based on a instance study of Tunisia, published past the International Evolution Inquiry Centre (IDRC) in The Nexus between Ceremonious Registration and Social Protection Systems: Five Country Practices. It is farther supplemented with other findings from a desk review of documents and other resources available on the Cyberspace. Among other things, the report presents:

Background information on the country;
Selected indicators relevant to CRVS improvement;
Stakeholders' activities; and
Resources available and needed to strengthen CRVS systems.

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Disclaimer: The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

Country profile

The Republic of Tunisia is a country in the Maghreb region of Northward Africa. Information technology is bordered by Algeria to the westward and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the n and east.

Tunisia is divided into 24 governorates. The governorates are divided into 264 delegations or districts, and further subdivided into municipalities and sectors.

163,610

Total SURFACE Surface area (Square KILOMETERS)

11,565,2041

POPULATION (MILLIONS)

ane.12

ANNUAL Charge per unit OF POPULATION Modify

313

POPULATION LIVING IN RURAL AREAS

Capital Urban center

Tunis

Official working language(southward)

Standard arabic

Ministry responsible for civil registration

Ministry responsible for ceremonious registration

Ministry of Local Affairs and Environment

Civil registration agency

General Advisers of Local Authorities

National statistical office

National Statistics Institute

CRVS Dimensions

Birth

Completeness of birth registration	99.nine% ( 20194 )
Children nether 5 whose births were registered	99% ( 20195 )
Births attended by skilled health professionals	99.7% ( 20196 )
Women aged xv-49 who received antenatal care from a skilled provider	100% ( 20197 )
DPT1 immunization coverage among 1-year-olds	99% ( 20188 )
Crude birth rate (per one,000 population)	18 ( 20179 )
Full fertility rate (live births per woman)	2.2 ( 201710 )
Adolescent fertility rate (per ane,000 girls aged 15-19 years)	eight ( 201711 )
Population nether historic period 15	23% ( 201212 )

Death

Completeness of decease registration	37% ( 201113 )
Rough death rate (per ane,000 population)	vi ( 201714 )
Infant mortality rate (probability of dying by age one per 1,000 live births)	14.vi ( 201815 )
Under five mortality rate (probability of dying by age 5 per 1,000 live births)	17 ( 201816 )
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 alive births)	43 ( 201717 )

Marriages and divorces

Marriage registration rate	Non available
Women aged 20-24 commencement married or in union before age xv	0% ( 201718 )
Women aged 20-24 first married or in marriage before age 18	2% ( 201719 )
Divorce registration rate	Not available

Vital statistics including causes of decease data

Compilation and dissemination of CR-based statistics	Available (N/A)
Medically certified causes of death data	Available (N/A)

Civil registration system

Legislative Framework

The Personal Condition Code (Lawmaking du Statut Personnel), enacted on 13 August 1956, marked the beginning of a major reform of the Tunisian civil status arrangement. It provided detailed legal regulation of marriage and divorce procedures while introducing a consummate ban on polygamy. Since then, the civil registration system in Tunisia has undergone a number of changes. Law No. 57‑3, which regulates ceremonious status, was enacted on one August 1957, ane week after the Tunisian Commonwealth was proclaimed and the monarchy was abolished. It introduced universal registration requirements regardless of ethnic or religious background. Annunciation of births and deaths, which had been optional for Tunisian nationals, became mandatory. Persons failing to register births and deaths faced criminal penalties.

The registration of deaths was instituted by Article 76 of Law 75-33, dated 14 May 1975. This article regulated the use of medical certificates as mandatory in death registration.

The enacting of Organic Law No. 42 on 30 May 2017, and the signing of the Council of Europe'south Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data in November 2017 provided the footing for introducing comprehensive privacy and data protection legislation. A draft of a new Tunisian law on the protection of personal information was submitted in March 2018 to the Tunisian Parliament to supplant the 2004 police. When adopted, it will align Tunisia'south legislation with the provisions of the European General Regulation 2016/679 on the protection of personal data.

Management, organization and operations

The civil registration organisation in Tunisia is managed by the Full general Directorate of Local Government nether the Ministry of Local Affairs and Surroundings. The say-so over the ceremonious registration organisation is shared with the Ministry of Justice through a tribunal of competent jurisdiction for each district. At the beginning of the year, the court provides all municipal districts with a dry stamp, which is affixed to each page of the two copies of the four civil condition registers (birth, decease, marriage, and divorce).

The Constitution and Organic Law No. 63-27 of July 2004 (Chapter VI) provided the legal ground for establishing the National Say-so for the Protection of Personal Data. The Say-so acts as a legal partner and advisor to the Identifier Management Unit of measurement in all matters related to identification systems and personal data. Its responsibilities include monitoring and regulation in the area of data and privacy protection.

National CRVS systems coordination mechanisms

Tunisia's legal identity system is supervised and coordinated by a national steering committee consisting of appointed representatives of the ministries and organizations with access to citizens' legal identity data, including the National Dominance for the Protection of Personal Data.

A dedicated CRVS committee operates with the objective of improving the quality of statistics on civil status. Members of this committee are the National Statistics Institute, the Ministry of Local Diplomacy and Environment, and the Ministry building of Health.

Administrative level registration centres

Tunisia'due south ceremonious registration system network consists of:

350 civil registry offices collocated with local regime offices;
170 subsidiary offices, annexes, and mobile units; and
85 Tunisian consular missions or diplomatic posts with a registration office.

Accessibility of ceremonious registration services

Information not available.

Registration of vital events

Nascence registration should be done within 10 days after the birth. To complete the registration, a civil status officeholder requires a birth medical certificate issued by a health facility or a midwife (for births taking identify at home) as well as the parents' birth certificates. If the birth is non registered within 10 days, birth registration can be done only upon a courtroom decision.

The police requires that death registration exist washed 3 days subsequently the death takes place. The doctor who has confirmed the death must consummate a death document that consists of two parts. The showtime part provides the legal identity information of the deceased and the second part provides medical information on the determined cause of death. The civil registration official completes the expiry registration upon receiving the death medical certificate.

Marriage registration is done for marriages celebrated before municipal civil registration officials. Individuals must present their

birth certificate;
identification document;
proof of legal capacity to enter into a spousal relationship contract;
prenuptial marriage certificate (a medical certificate establishing eligibility to contract marriage);
divorce certificate (if previously married); and
decease certificate (if previously married and the partner died).

Non-Muslim men must present a Mufti-issued document indicating that the man has been accepted into the Muslim faith.

Divorce registration and the issuance of the registration document is done within 10 days of the date of the divorce court ruling.

Vital statistics organization

The National Statistics Institute is responsible for aggregating vital statistics data. Its work is done past 48 public statistical structures, which are coordinated past the National Statistics Council. Since 1970, the civil registration arrangement has immune the National Statistics Institute privileged simply regulated access to civil registration records in order to generate vital statistics data.

Every year, the National Statistics Institute distributes vital events registration forms to all municipalities. The municipalities enter the data that is required to generate vital statistics on the forms from vital events registration records. Every month, municipalities are asked to render completed forms, which are then processed and used for generating vital statistics reports. The National Statistics Plant has an agreement with the National Centre of Informatics, which operates the information technology platform that supports municipal civil registration offices. Based on this agreement, the National Statistics Institute tin can obtain the data needed to generate vital statistics directly from the central civil register database. By cantankerous-referencing the information received from the central civil register database and the data received straight from the municipal registration offices, the National Statistics Establish ensures completeness and quality of vital statistics reports that are published monthly.

Causes of death

Tunisia's system of information on medical causes of death was created in the late 1990s. This system has been fully and exclusively developed within the National Institute of Public Health. It is based on the use of a standard death certificate model, in line with the model recommended by the World Wellness Organization. This model was introduced in 1999 under a presidential decree (Decree No. 99-1043 of 17 May 1999, JORT No. 43 of 28 May 1999). The systematic drove of medical causes of decease was ready in January 2001.

The main source of crusade of death data is death registration records. Each record indicates the date and time of death and includes demographic, sociological, and geographic data relating to the deceased. The statistical office of the registration record contains medical information (crusade of expiry) every bit well as additional information on the circumstances of the death (place of occurrence, possible link to pregnancy, and whether an autopsy was conducted). The medical role of the tape is further divided into two dissever but complementary sections. The first department examines the main causes of death and allows the doc to describe the process that led to expiry, ranging from the initial cause that is most important (specially from a public wellness perspective) to the final crusade or firsthand cause.

Co-ordinate to the National Statistics Institute, almost 70 percent of causes of death are reported. Yet, the Ministry building of Public Wellness considers only 40 percent of death certificates to be statistically reliable for causes of decease, even though it conducts preparation and awareness campaigns with physicians in the public and private sectors.

Digitization

Digitization of the ceremonious registration system began in the 1980s. In this initial phase, some 40 municipalities developed their customized software applications, which they used to computerize their civil registration procedure. The change came in 1996 when the authorities decided to create a national computerized ceremonious registry system and mandated all municipalities to use the same software platform. At that fourth dimension, each of these municipal systems operated in local mode without existence connected with other municipal systems. By 2005, all municipal ceremonious registration offices were interconnected into a nationwide estimator system. Civil status offices in municipalities created after 2005 were integrated in the nationwide system right after they were established.

Computerization

Ceremonious status registration offices are connected with the key civil annals database through the ceremonious registration software platform MADIANA. The platform fabricated major improvements in how registered information is stored, processed, and shared. Nigh notably, it allows for

printing of the civil status documents regardless of the place of registration (online);
manual and commutation of information between civil status data users;
maintaining a reliable centralized database;
controlling support and reports generation; and
electronic exchange of civil condition documents with the national social security funds.

The registrar records vital events directly in the database. These events are accessible the next morning time to all registration offices across the country. Users no longer have to travel to the place of their nativity to get a document. Whatsoever civil condition officer in whatever municipal commune can admission and print certificates in real time after the user gives their last proper name, first name, and appointment of nativity.

The Ministry of Local Affairs and Environment has contracted the National Centre of Informatics to operate the it platform run by the municipalities. The agency besides provides technical back up and maintenance. The National Centre of Informatics operates under the Minister of Communication Technologies and Digital Economy. The centre is tasked with providing support to the public structures that realize, deploy, and operate information systems. The National Bureau for Computer Security periodically audits and validates the security system for the centre's servers that host the ceremonious status data.

Online registration services at wellness facilities

Other than issuing birth and death medical certificates, wellness facilities do non have specific roles in registering these events.

Mobile applied science application

Mobile applied science is not used for ceremonious registration processes.

Unique identification number

Historically, Tunisia'due south identity system consisted of identity programs and registers. Each of these registers operated its ain unique identifier that was used to rapidly look up personal data in the system. These unique identifiers were not interoperable between the systems and each was designed using different logic or standards.

In 2011, the regime decided to work on creating a Citizen'southward Unique National Identifier Number that would mitigate problems arising from different unique identifiers used by different systems. The resulting roadmap recommended setting up a universal identification system using
three strategies:

Create the Denizen's Unique National Identifier Number assigned from nativity.
Engage the Ministry of Local Affairs and Environs to exist responsible for the Citizen's Unique National Identifier Number.
Prefer the X-Road interoperability platform, a secure and decentralized data exchange network that allows easy connection of various databases, and the improver of new ones, regardless of the original platform. This decentralized arrangement implies that information is stored but inside the government organization responsible for information technology and is accessible through the unique identifier of the private or company concerned.

In many other countries, the unique identification number is mandatory for all systems. Yet, in Tunisia, public data users can set up their own sectoral unique identification number. These unique identification numbers tin exist either made public or not, depending on the custodian of the database.

The Identifier Management Unit of the Ministry of Local Diplomacy and Environment coordinates all activities related to identity management by Tunisian public authorities. The unit is tasked with putting in place conditions for data interoperability betwixt different public databases. The unit's main task is to create lookup tables that translate the citizen's unique national identifier numbers into a corresponding sectoral unique identifier developed by the operator of that organization. These translation lookup tables allow data interoperability, although identifiers in use by two systems do not match. This approach of using a wide range of interoperable identifiers comes with two very of import advantages:

It allows operators that have an identification system in identify to avoid edifice a new one.
It limits managers of a public database operator from accessing the personal data of users of other public database operators without their explicit permission.

For example, a public database operator can set upwardly an agreement via the Identifier Management Unit of measurement to access vital statistics or data belonging to other operators from time to time. They may also arrange one-time transactions to any public institution database operator. For each asking, the unit creates a lookup tabular array betwixt the identifier numbers of the 2 operators to open admission to information. If problems arise, a technical team meets to find a solution.

Digitization of historical ceremonious registration records

Digitization of historical civil registration paper records began in 2000. The decision was made to do the manual data entry straight into the electronic database rather than to scan registration records. Past March 2005, all civil registration newspaper archives had been transferred and since and then, they have been kept in the central database. Since that time, all civil registration records are produced equally a handwritten re-create in the existing civil register books and as a digital re-create in the civil register database. Only the version recorded in the newspaper registers has probative force: if in that location is a cloth error in the handwritten registers, only a judge can authorize that information technology exist corrected. If there is an fault in transcription from paper records to the computer record, the registrar tin can correct it at the ceremonious registration office.

Link with identification system

From the age of xviii, all Tunisian nationals living in Tunisia must accept a national identity card. To use for an identity card, the bidder must present their nascence certificate. Persons whose nascency was never registered must offset get their birth certificate by documenting their identity through a courtroom judgment before being able to apply for a national identity card.

The Full general Directorate for National Security of the Ministry of Interior is in accuse of implementing the national ID arrangement. To enrol, people must apply in person at the police station (for those who live in cities) or at the National Guard station in the district of their electric current residence (for those who alive outside cities). The national identity card system is not interoperable with the civil annals database, which ways that each applicant must have a birth document that is not older than iii months.

Existing national identity cards carry no biometric data in electronic format. A new law that was yet existence adult in 2019 envisages issuing a national identity card with a secure electronic chip. The chip would contain the photograph and electronic print of the cardholder'due south right thumb, along with other data that are bachelor only to national security officers who are responsible for identity verification.

Interface with other sectors and operations

Many other regime systems rely on civil registration records to make up one's mind whether persons meet eligibility criteria for accessing various services. Many of these records are connected with social grants.

In 2007, the Ministry of Social Affairs launched a program to help children of poor and disadvantaged families to receive schooling. The plan provides monthly fiscal assistance to educate children in families that receive benefits from the Plan National d'Aide aux Familles Nécessiteuses (national plan for families in need). In 2019, families received US$iii.50 per month per pupil (up to three pupils). The program reached more than ninety,000 school-aged children.

The Amen Social Programme, initiated in January 2019, is aimed at poor and limited income individuals or families whose lack of resources affects their income, health, didactics, access to public services, and living conditions. The Amen Social Program aims to attain adults who are in the civil registration organization but do not accept a national identity card. The first strategy of the Amen Social Program is to develop and implement a Social Identifier Number at the national level. This will allow all the administrative databases attached to the Ministry building of Social Affairs to be interoperable — a fundamental status that had to be put in identify earlier reforming the social protection system. The Ministry of Public Health recently decided to assign that same Social Identifier Number to patients using public health facilities.

Managing information systems around the Social Identifier Number should help social protection policies achieve their goals past better targeting programs and by reducing errors when it comes to who is included and excluded. The Social Identifier Number is intended to link and combine the many programs that the Ministry of Social Diplomacy manages, such as:

National program for families in demand;
Access to Care Program;
Children without family support;
Social action in schools;
Social protection for all categories of people with special needs;
Integration programs in schools for students with a inability;
Training;
Employment and income earning; and
Physical and digital accessibility for people with disabilities.

As part of ongoing plans to implement e-regime, different government services will exist linked directly with the national identity carte du jour database to allow for identity verification. While the system is in the planning stage, some of the interoperability elements take been already implemented. One example is sharing expiry registration data with the Ministry building of Social Affairs, which can authorize payments or stop further social transfers to the family of the deceased.

Sample registration forms

Improvement initiatives and external support

Improvement program and budget

Strategic plan

The Tunisian regime was mindful of the objectives for the digital economic system sector found in the National Development Plan 2016–2020. As such, it adopted the "Digital Tunisia 2020" National Strategic Program. The project consists of establishing

the master ministerial information systems (such equally e-finance, e-justice, and east-local authorities); and
platforms that guarantee an east-government (such equally interoperability, the public deject, and the government intranet).

Now that the civil registration business processes have been fully digitized, including the civil registration paper archives, the focus shifts toward realizing information and systems interoperability inside the authorities sector.

Budgetary allocations and requirements

Ceremonious registration services are financed jointly by the Ministry of Local Government and Environment and the local regime and diplomatic representations hosting civil registration offices. The fact that Tunisia has achieved very close to universal vital events registration rates and full computerization and digitization of registration business organization processes demonstrates adequate budgetary support.

Support from development partners

Tunisian registration authorities cooperate with UNICEF (United Nations Children'due south Fund) on the development of multiple indicator cluster survey (MICS) reports. They also draw from the United nations Economical Commission for Africa's Programme on Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APAI-CRVS) for exchanging good practices in CRVS and making further improvements to CRVS systems across the African continent.

Additional Materials

Websites

Additional materials

Africa Evolution Bank Group. 2017. Support Projection for the Implementation of the "Digital Tunisia 2020" National Strategic Plan. afdb.org/en/documents/document/tunisia-support-projectfor-the-implementation-of-the-digital-tunisia-2020-national-strategic-program-98912

Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Systems. 2020. The Nexus between Civil Registration and Social Protection Systems: Five Country Practices – Tunisia Case Study. International Evolution Research Heart, Ottawa, ON. crvssystems.ca/sites/default/files/assets/files/SocialProtection_5_Tunisia_e_WEB.pdf

Institut National de Santé Publique. 2015. Le système national d'data sur les causes médicales de décès. insp.rns.tn/doctor/causedecce/staitistique-causes-deces2013.doc

République tunisienne. 2019. Enquête par grappes à indicateurs multiples (MICS) 2018. Rapport final des résultats. Statistique Tunisie et UNICEF. mics-surveys-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/MICS6/Middle%20East%20and%20North%20Africa/Tunisia/2018/Survey%20findings/Tunisia_2018_MICS_SFR_French.pdf

République tunisienne. SICAD. 2020. L'information et la communication administrative. sicad.gov.tn/Fr/Prestation_Obtention-de-la-carte-didentitenationale-pour-la-premiere-fois_57_27_D1309

Conclusion

Ceremonious registration and legal identity management systems are very long-established and rooted in Tunisian club, and are an indivisible aspect of the public governance arrangement. The government has very early on recognized the importance of universal and continuous registration equally well as the importance of investing in the digitization of ceremonious registration records and the registration business organization processes. The conclusion to keep sector-specific unique identifiers that tin be linked with the Citizen's Unique National Identifier Number using protected lookup tables shows how the unique identification number from nascence can afterward be used without compromising privacy and personal information protection. The part of the civil registration system in public governance will be further pronounced with the expansion of interoperability betwixt government information engineering science systems and the rolling out of a range of e-governance services.

Endnotes