Stateless in South Africa

Hundreds of thousands of people living in South Africa are stateless, that is according to a report titled ‘Statelessness and Nationality in South Africa’ released on Wednesday by the Lawyers for Human Rights and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

UNHCR’s Deputy Regional Representative Sergio Calle-Norena says Mozambicans make up a large contingent of the stateless people in SA.

“According to the four consulates of Mozambique there are a good 500,000 people here in the country that could be stateless,” he said.

He added that thousands of Mozambicans left their country in search of a better life and now cannot return.

“If they could prove, irrespective of the lack of documents, that they are indeed Mozambicans its perfect but many of them, according to the Mozambican law, when they have passed more than three generations outside the country they don’t have claim to the country,” said Calle-Norena.

According to the report, a stateless person is not recognised as a national by any country and is not protected as a citizen. The UNHCR says more than 12 million people around the world are stateless.

But legal counselor for the Statelessness Project on behalf of the LHR Jessica George says it is not clear exactly how many people are stateless in the country.

“Unfortunately there are no reliable statistics on how many stateless people are present in South Africa, it’s hard to say whether South Africa has more stateless people than other neighbouring countries,” she said.

Soweto resident Thokozani Situ says being stateless growing up was not easy. He was born in Swaziland to a Swazi mother and a South African father. Tragedy struck when his mother died and he had to move to South Africa where he grew up with his grandmother but he did not have proper documentation.

“I was constantly going to Home Affairs back and forth and my applications were just being thrown away because to them I was a nobody since I never had the citizenship they were looking for. That was killing the goals I had before because I was looking forward to [furthering] my studies and have a better life for myself but it was very tough,” said Situ.

George also says people with no nationality face daily struggles.

"You can be repeatedly arrested and detained for the purpose of deportation but you can’t be deported so you can spend prolonged periods in detention,” she said.

The Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) have made recommendations to the South African government to dealing with statelessness including that the country sign and ratify the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. It argues the country’s law and practice will be in line with international standards.

Yesterday the LHR and UNHCR also launched a photographic exhibition titled 'South Africa’s Invisible People' which detailed the struggles of some of the stateless people living in the country.