support letter for orphaned and other children who may not have family environment to get registered. Despite these efforts, the Committee notes challenges including the distances people in the villages travel to access birth registration centers and that traditional practices like naming rituals that leads to newly born babies leaving health centers without being registered. There are also reports of long queues at registration centres, poor quality of services; including members of the public being sent back and forth, delays in issuance of birth certificates mainly due to lack of paper or printing machines, and mobile registration not being carried out periodically. In addition, the Committee notes some legal barriers such as the requirement of the physical presence of the father for the registration of children born out of wedlock, and the requirement for parents to produce their own birth certificate in order to register their children as the major barriers to the implementation of the State Party’s obligation to ensure universal and free birth registration for all children born in the territory. The Committee notes that the above-mentioned challenges impose cost on parents such as transportation fees to register and collect birth certificate, transportation fee for witnesses in cases where the father is not present, payment for birth records if lost and so forth. Mobile registrations are not carried out periodically and free birth registration campaigns for children and adults is not sustained. The abovementioned challenges were all attested by the participants of the workshop that the Committee has organised on 14 June 2019. Furthermore, the Committee learns that there no assessment undertaken on birth registration to measure the progress and identify the challenges. The visit informed the Committee that Lack of birth registration affects sitting in national exams, participation of children, and reporting of sexual abuse as courts require birth certificate to determine the age of the victim. ii. 7.5. Protection from abuse: The Committee observes that its recommendation on removing whipping as a sentence against children in conflict with the law has been implemented and corporal punishment has been abolished as punishment by the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe. However, the banning of corporal punishment in all settings including schools is yet to be realized as harmonization of laws is not finalized including the adoption of the Education Amendment Bill which aims to outlaw corporal punishment in schools. In addition to outlawing corporal punishment, the Committee observes the need to undertake sensitization as corporal punishment is deep rooted in the society. Family environment and alternative care The Committee notes that alternative care for children is handled by the Department of Social Welfare and both domestic and inter-country adoption are carried out considering the best interest of the child. The Committee was also informed that monitoring of adoption cases is undertaken 8