{"id":12201,"date":"2017-02-17T13:21:13","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T13:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/?p=12201"},"modified":"2017-02-21T13:24:13","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T13:24:13","slug":"south-africa-battle-for-birth-certificates-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/south-africa-battle-for-birth-certificates-won\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa: Battle for birth certificates won"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bernadette Wol\u00adhuter<\/em><\/p>\n

A FATHER<\/span>\u2019S des\u00adper\u00adate wish to have his daugh\u00adters recog\u00adnised as South African cit\u00adi\u00adzens was finally realised this week when they were both issued with birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcates, but he was not around to wit\u00adness it.<\/p>\n

\n

The Dur\u00adban man, died last year just a month after he and his wife, with the help of the Legal Resources Cen\u00adtre, had brought an appli\u00adca\u00adtion in the Dur\u00adban High Court to get their children\u2019s births reg\u00adis\u00adtered and for them to get unabridged birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcates so they would be allowed to go to school.<\/p>\n

The chil\u00addren, aged 9<\/span> and almost 3<\/span>, were born in Dur\u00adban to a South African father and a Swazi mother. How\u00adever due to their mother not hav\u00ading an ID<\/span>, Home Affairs refused to issue the chil\u00addren with birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcates, which led to the older child being unable to attend school.<\/p>\n

The mat\u00adter of school\u00ading was resolved last year but the mother only received birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcates for both her daugh\u00adters this week. This was con\u00adfirmed yes\u00adter\u00adday by advo\u00adcate Stu\u00adart Humphrey, who acted on behalf of the Legal Resources Cen\u00adtre for the cou\u00adple, when the mat\u00adter came before Judge Piet Koen in the Dur\u00adban High Court.<\/p>\n

Yes\u00adter\u00adday the girls\u2019 mother, who can\u00adnot be named to pro\u00adtect her children\u2019s iden\u00adti\u00adties, told The Mer\u00adcury that her hus\u00adband would have been thrilled by the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would have jumped over the moon,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said she felt relieved and elated. \u201cI\u2019m so happy, you have no idea,\u201dshe said.<\/p>\n

She was espe\u00adcially grate\u00adful to the Legal Resources Cen\u00adtre, who had taken on the case.<\/p>\n

In their court appli\u00adca\u00adtion, the girls\u2019 father had said in his found\u00ading affi\u00addavit that at age 8<\/span>, his eldest daugh\u00adter had no for\u00admal edu\u00adca\u00adtion because she had been turned away from schools since 2014<\/span> due to the fact that she had no birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcate.<\/p>\n

His children\u2019s mother was a \u201cstate\u00adless per\u00adson and uniden\u00adti\u00adfi\u00adable\u201d, with no papers, he said.<\/p>\n

After the birth of both of their chil\u00addren, they repeat\u00adedly attempted to reg\u00adis\u00adter and get birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcates for them, but were always turned away because of their mother\u2019s lack of ID<\/span> doc\u00adu\u00adments.<\/p>\n

Recount\u00ading her eldest daughter\u2019s first day of school last year, the mother said she was glad her hus\u00adband had been alive for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was so excited that day,\u201d she said, \u201cHe got up early and dressed her him\u00adself.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said her daugh\u00adter was enjoy\u00ading school and she planned to enrol her youngest child in playschool soon, now that she had her birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcate.<\/p>\n

But her bat\u00adtle is not over. Her own bid for doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adta\u00adtion to legalise her being in the coun\u00adtry \u2013 as con\u00adtained in the orig\u00adi\u00adnal appli\u00adca\u00adtion \u2013 is con\u00adtin\u00adu\u00ading.<\/p>\n

Accord\u00ading to the court papers, the woman was born in Swazi\u00adland and imme\u00addi\u00adately placed in an orphan\u00adage where she lived until she was 15<\/span>. She never knew her bio\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal par\u00adents. Owing to abuse at the orphan\u00adage, she fled to Dur\u00adban in Feb\u00adru\u00adary 2007<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The cou\u00adple had tried to obtain proof of iden\u00adtity for her from Swazi\u00adland.<\/p>\n

They had con\u00adtacted the orphan\u00adage, but were told it had no records for her and that, if they did, they would have been destroyed.<\/p>\n

The mat\u00adter remains before the court.<\/p>\n

Read on LRC website.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Bernadette Wol\u00adhuter A FATHER\u2019S des\u00adper\u00adate wish to have his daugh\u00adters recog\u00adnised as South African cit\u00adi\u00adzens was finally realised this week when they were both issued with birth cer\u00adtifi\u00adcates, but he was not around to wit\u00adness it. The Dur\u00adban man, died last year just a month after he and his wife, with the help of […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","region-south-africa","type-news-articles","item-year-631","item-theme-acquisition-by-children","item-theme-birth-registration"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12201"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12203,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201\/revisions\/12203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}