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Well, while that back and forth on the efficiencies or lack thereof at the department can go on, there are Belizeans who have first hand bad experiences dealing with the office staff. One of those persons is Corozal resident Idolly Westby. She says for 5 years she has been trying to get a birth certificate for her 16 year old son and her 10 year old daughter and still can't get them yet. She is fed up of going back to the office over and over and her application is not going anywhere. She told us her story today.

Idolly Westby, Corozal Resident
"I went to get a birth paper for my son and then for my daughter to late register her and at the time, after her registration was done, I was to pick up a birth paper for her and birth paper for my son but when doing this, they could not find my son registration all the other kids are registered in the computer and could not find his and I have a son younger than him who is registered but he is not in the computer or books. After I went through, they told me I have to do a re-registration for him and do a late registration for my daughter again so I went through the process and I did it again taking the form to the JP, picking up the proof of birth at the hospital which is $20 now which was $10 when I started and then you have to get the stamps, taking it in, doing all that, the process and when I got there that still wasn't done so I went back again and did it all over again, that was like 3 repeats I had…yes ma'am and the last one was last year when my son was to go to high school. My two kids are not registered at the education office because they don't have a birth paper. The principal of the primary school that they were in gave them a run registered them for me which he should not have done and since then I have been running back and forth, my daughter is in standard 3 now and my son just started in first form and I can't get any proof that they are Belizeans, exactly, so in other words my kids are alien. And just going through the process over and over and can't get through, it makes me feel bad and it is something I need to do. My kids don't have a social security card which they need and they are going further in life, my son is going to be 17, 18 next year and he doesn't have anything to prove he is a Belizean where he can go from there so I need this to get out so I can get help because going back and forth for 5 years is unfair".

We will be following up with Vital Stats to see if there is another side to her complaints. She has 7 children and the others do have their birth certificates.