Harare Man Demands Birth Certificate Cancellation After Winning Paternity Test
4 November 2020
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A Harare man has approached the Harare Civil Court seeking the cancellation of the birth certificate of his child after DNA tests showed that he was not the father.

Edmund Mutambara has made an application for cancellation of the birth certificate of the child after his girlfriend Josephine Nekazhu allegedly lied that the baby was his.

However, the paternity test proved that Mutambara is not the father of the child. In the application, Mutambara, cited Nekazhu and the messenger of court as the first and second respondents respectively.

Circumstances are that, sometime in April last year, Mutambara was involved in an intimate relationship with Nekazhu and in June, Nekazhu fell pregnant and she told Mutambara that it was his pregnancy.

On October 14, 2019, Nekazhu gave birth and her maternity records reflected that she delivered after carrying the baby to full term.

Mutambara started disputing paternity of the minor child since the two had only known each other for only seven months when the baby was born.

According to Mutambara’s affidavit in January 2020, Nekazhu threatened that she will claim maintenance for the minor child if he refused to contribute to the child’s upkeep.

Nekazhu reportedly told Mutambara that she has secured a birth certificate for the minor child through the messenger of court and that it indicated that he was the biological father of the child.

This did not go well with Mutambara since the birth certificate was issued without his knowledge or consent and he had never surrendered his identification particulars to Nekazhu as is the norm.

Mutambara then engaged Nekazhu’s relatives so that DNA tests could be done to determine the child’s paternity.

In March, this year, DNA tests were done after samples were taken from Mutambara and the baby after consent from both parties.

The DNA test results came out on August 25 this year and they indicated that the probability of Mutambara being the father of the baby was zero percent.

The results were explained to the parties and Nekazhu did not dispute them. She pleaded with Mutambara to seek advice on how to cancel the birth certificate so that the matter can be resolved amicably.

The matter has been set down for November 9 for hearing at the Harare Civil Court.