\u2018There are various pathways and provisions in the law that recognise that people should not be stateless, and we are failing to ensure that these people have papers,\u2019 says Global Movement Against Statelessness\u2019 Christy Chitengu.<\/em><\/p>\nChristy Chitengu was born in South Africa and regards herself as a South African, despite her parents being Zimbabwean.<\/p>\n
She had called South Africa home for her entire life, but for many years, Chitengu could not freely access services that many citizens and residents take for granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was undocumented for most of my life, so I have a lived experience of what it\u2019s like to live in South Africa without papers. The exclusion from [accessing services] is vast and it touches the most vital rights,\u201d said Chitengu.<\/p>\n
She said she only realised the challenge of not having documentation when she was in Grade 11 and, with 10 undocumented pupils, was called into the principal\u2019s office at her high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cSitting in the office, I was questioned by the principal, who asked why I was in school and how I got into school. \u2018You cannot write your matric exams if you do not have documentation,\u2019 [said the principal.]\u201d<\/p>\n
National legislation states that non-South African children, including undocumented persons, asylum-seekers and refugees, may not be denied access to a basic education. This legal framework has been upheld by the courts.<\/p>\n
Chitengu and her mother went to Home Affairs, where she was told that her South African birth certificate did not mean she could go to school here.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t realise that these handwritten birth certificates that they hold on to are insufficient, and that only comes to light when they try to access services like education,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Read further: https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2024-08-30-undocumented-migrants-in-sa-battle-to-access-education-healthcare-and-other-vital-services\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lerato Mutsila \u2018There are various pathways and provisions in the law that recognise that people should not be stateless, and we are failing to ensure that these people have papers,\u2019 says Global Movement Against Statelessness\u2019 Christy Chitengu. Christy Chitengu was born in South Africa and regards herself as a South African, despite her parents […]","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-41319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","region-south-africa","type-news-articles","item-year-695","item-theme-birth-registration","item-theme-id-documents-and-passports","item-theme-statelessness"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41319","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=41319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41320,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41319\/revisions\/41320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}