As school placements for next year are being finalized, thousands of South African children will still be denied access to an education due to a lack of documentation. This was confirmed by the Deputy Ministers of Home Affairs and Basic Education in Parliament on Tuesday in a response to a call by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to urgently resolve this issue and provide assistance to undocumented South African children.
The Deputy Minister of Basic Education, Reginah Mhaule, merely reaffirmed that South African children are given a three-month grace period to get a birth certificate and the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Njabulo Nzuza, stated that immigration services have been instructed not to force undocumented children to be taken out of school for being undocumented. However, this does not stop the schools from rejecting undocumented children, many of whom are in fact South African children who never had an opportunity to receive their documentation. It simply demonstrates a complete lack of empathy for their plight.
According to UNICEF, it is estimated that 5% of South African children do not have birth certificates. The 2018/19 Home Affairs Annual Report paints a worse picture with 186 000 children having their births being registered as late as 14 years old and 25 000 registered after 15 years old – a total of 18% of all birth registrations.
The South African Human Rights Commission furthermore states that the vast majority of learners adversely impacted by a lack of documentation are poor black learners from predominantly rural areas.
Several challenges lead to these late registrations including cultural reasons or where the parents cannot be located or are deceased. This leads to unfair discrimination as the affected children don’t personally have the power to correct the situation.
The fact is that South African children are being punished for the inability of Home Affairs to manage refugees and asylum seekers as children without identification who are born to South African parents are also perceived to be “illegal immigrants”.
In a 2015 briefing in Parliament, then Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Fatima Chohan said: “We are going to make screening more difficult because most [of those] who are taking up late registrations are failed asylum seekers who have not left the country. Then [they] try their luck for South African citizenship through late registration of birth applications.”
It has been over a year since the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights called on South Africa to ensure that all children have access to education, and if anything the attitude of Home Affairs has hardened since then. This approach remains and makes the process of late birth registration by a South African child a challenging one.
Basic Education Circular 1 of 2019 provides a three-month grace period to get documented but without the proactive assistance of Home Affairs, many of these children cannot access this service and are thrown out of school or denied exam admission due to lack of documentation.
The lack of birth certificate leaves them as outsiders in their own country, excluded from any social assistance.
Apart from our UN Commitments, Section 28(2) of our Constitution states that the best interest if the child is of paramount importance in all matters concerning the child.
The DA, therefore, calls on the Ministers of Home Affairs and Basic Education to undertake measures to urgently assist such children that cannot access documentation within the specified three-month period. Furthermore, to issue a Circular clearly stating that children cannot be denied access to basic education due to a lack of documentation.
The Democratic Alliance will continue to fight for the right to an education and the right to an identity for all South African children across our land so that none will be denied freedom, fairness, and opportunity.