{"id":42315,"date":"2025-04-17T10:29:57","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T08:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/?p=42315"},"modified":"2025-04-17T10:30:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T08:30:41","slug":"south-africa-six-distinctions-but-no-id-top-matriculants-hope-of-becoming-a-doctor-crushed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/south-africa-six-distinctions-but-no-id-top-matriculants-hope-of-becoming-a-doctor-crushed\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa: Six distinctions but no ID: Top matriculant\u2019s hope of becoming a doctor crushed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u201cMy mother was a citizen, yet I cannot get an ID\u201d says Emmanuel Ndlovu<\/em><\/p>\n<p>By Kimberly Mutandiro<\/p>\n<p>After achieving six distinctions in his matric exams, Emmanuel Ndlovu planned to go to university and become a doctor.<\/p>\n<p>But this has been put on hold because he does not have a birth certificate or ID.<\/p>\n<p>The law in South Africa gives children born to at least one South African parent the right to citizenship, but thousands of people still battle daily with bureaucracy at Home Affairs, says Lawyers for Human Rights.<\/p>\n<p>Johannesburg matriculant Emmanuel Ndlovu had dreams of enrolling at the University of Cape Town or the University of Witwatersrand to pursue a career in medicine this year. But though he achieved six distinctions and a merit pass above 70%, 17-year-old Ndlovu is still sitting at home because he does not have a birth certificate or an ID.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy peers are moving on with their lives, but I\u2019m stuck,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Ndlovu and his four brothers do not have identity documents because their mother, a South African citizen, discovered that she was sharing an ID number with another person. She has struggled to rectify this for years but the Home Affairs system blocked her from registering her children. Ndlovu says he never knew his father.<\/p>\n<p>He has been able to attend primary and high school without a birth certificate, because his mother could present his clinic card as proof of identity. To register and collect his matric exam results, Ndlovu managed to get proof of his birth from Leratong Hospital in Krugersdorp.<\/p>\n<p>Read further: <a href=\"https:\/\/groundup.org.za\/article\/star-matriculants-dream-of-becoming-a-doctor-crushed-because-he-doesnt-have-a-birth-certificate-or-id\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/groundup.org.za\/article\/star-matriculants-dream-of-becoming-a-doctor-crushed-because-he-doesnt-have-a-birth-certificate-or-id\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMy mother was a citizen, yet I cannot get an ID\u201d says Emmanuel Ndlovu By Kimberly Mutandiro After achieving six distinctions in his matric exams, Emmanuel Ndlovu planned to go to university and become a doctor. But this has been put on hold because he does not have a birth certificate or ID. The law [&hellip;]","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-42315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","region-south-africa","type-news-articles","item-year-698","item-theme-acquisition-by-children","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\/42315","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=42315"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42317,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42315\/revisions\/42317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}