ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia has introduced a system that allows foreign nationals to acquire certificates for vital events, such as marriage, birth, divorce, adoption and death.
The move came in to effect as the directive for vital events registration for foreign nationals was unveiled on Friday by the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The ministry reveled in a statement issued on Friday that foreign nationals residing in Ethiopia, both in the capital Addis Ababa and regional states, will be provided with certificates of marriage, birth, divorce, adoption and death based on the directive prepared.
Ethiopia has launched a compulsory and universal registration and certification of vital events such as birth, death, marriage and divorce throughout the country in August 2016.
The east African country had also recently enacted a law that gives special rights to Jews of Ethiopian origin and Rastafarians. Investment opportunities, the right to buy and sell houses and the right to transfer assets to siblings are some of the rights the two communities will have, generally reserved only to Ethiopian citizens.
The new law, however, excluded the two communities from voting rights, employment in security related institutions and the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The two communities will also be given an Ethiopian national Identification Card that would allow entering Ethiopia without entrance visas and residence permits.
The Ethiopian government estimates that there are about 150,000 Jews of Ethiopian Origin living abroad mainly in the Jewish state of Israel.
Rastafarianism is a religious movement that started in the 1930s in the black population of Caribbean islands that teaches the eventual redemption of blacks in their return in Africa and venerates Ethiopia's last Emperor Haileselassie I as god.
