There are many situations where a person is allowed to remove the father's identification from a birth certificate in Kenya.
To omit a parent's name from the certificate, the court requires evidence supporting the request, such as DNA test results and proof that the information on the original certificate was incorrect.
According to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, the registrar has a duty to maintain a register of births and a register of deaths, entering the prescribed particulars of every birth and death notified to them.
Under the Act, no one should be registered as the father except either at the joint request of both parents or upon the production of evidence, as required by the registrar, proving that the father and mother were legally married or married according to recognised custom.
The Act also states that in the case of any changes to the birth certificate, the guardian must provide evidence to the registrar.
“Where the birth of any child has been registered before it has received a name, or where the name by which it was registered is altered, the parent or guardian of such a child may, within two years of registration, on payment of the prescribed fee and on providing such evidence as the registrar may deem necessary, register the name that has been given to the child," part of the Act reads.
According to lawyer Benson Otieno, one scenario in which someone may wish to remove a name is when a man marries a single mother of a young child and wants to take full parental responsibility for the child.
Otieno added that if a name was erroneously or accidentally listed as a parent on the child's birth certificate, or if the individual named is not the child's biological father or mother, the name may be removed.
On June 17, 2024, a court in Kisumu granted a man’s request to have his name removed from a child's birth certificate after two DNA tests confirmed that he was not the biological father of the nine-year-old minor.
According to the judge overseeing the case, a child has the right to have untrue information regarding their father’s identity corrected or deleted from their birth certificate.
“In this case, two DNA tests confirmed that the applicant, who was listed in the child’s birth certificate as the biological father, was not the actual father. He, therefore, sought the deletion of his name from the certificate.”
“The court held that the child had the right to the correction or deletion of untrue or misleading information affecting them. As a result, the court allowed the application and ruled that the applicant’s name, listed as the child’s father, be deleted from the birth certificate,” the judge stated on June 10.
