Mozambique Legal Analysis

Article 6 of the Civil Registry Code, allows births registered by competent foreign authorities or Mozambican consular agents to be transcribed into the national civil register. Parents can apply for transcription into the Central Register through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Therefore, the system provides for registration of births abroad by transcription (after verification of foreign documents) rather than direct registration.  

Mozambique Legal Analysis

In the case of children who have been abandoned, their birth must be registered in the office with jurisdiction over the place where the child was found. The process and information that must be captured when recording birth of a child who has been abandoned, are specified in Articles 132-136 of the Civil Registry Code. 

Mozambique Legal Analysis

Adoption must be annotated on the birth record. Article 85(g) of the Civil Registry Code lists adoption and its revocation among the facts that must be entered into the birth record.

Articles 275-277 require that, narrative certificates for adopted children indicate only the adoptive parents, with the natural parents' details only when legally necessary (such as when initiating marriage process). This means that, when an adoption is finalized, the registrar amends the birth register to record the adoptive parents and restricts access to information about the natural parents.

The law does not specifically address issues with obtaining a domestic birth certificate for children adopted from foreign countries but will likely follow same process if adoptive parents are Mozambican. 
 

Mozambique Legal Analysis

Mozambican law does not provide a specific procedure for registering births resulting from surrogacy arrangements. Surrogacy is not regulated, so the general birth-registration rules apply. The woman who gives birth is recorded as the mother (Articles 140-144) unless a court decides otherwise. No amendment procedure exists to reflect intended parents in surrogacy cases.