A state of statelessness

Nelisiwe Mathe does not have a South African ID and her one-year-old baby cannot get a birth-certificate, so, as a result, together they are two stateless people born in South Africa, living in Tembisa.

The 23-year-old has been frequenting Home Affairs offices for the past four years, before her child was born, to try to get her ID document, only to be told that her ID number had been issued to another person. Mathe had to drop out of school because she could not register for her matric exams. She said she could not find work, open a business or even a bank account because her South African citizenship was not confirmed.

Mathe, although technically stateless, has a better chance of her case being resolved because an ID was issued in her name but ended up with another person.

For thousands of people who were either born outside the country, orphans, children of illegal immigrants and children of couples from countries with strict citizenship laws such as Cuba, where you lose citizenship after two years of being outside the country, statelessness is an everyday reality.

Lawyers for Human Rights this weekend launched Promoting Citizenship and Preventing Statelessness in South Africa, a guide meant to assist attorneys, paralegals and social workers, among, others in dealing with cases of stateless individuals.

The organisation last year brought to the Constitutional Court the case of Maria, a four-year-old girl who was born in South Africa to Cuban immigrants.

Cuba did not recognise her as a citizen, and neither did South Africa, as her parents are also non-citizens. The court ruled in favour of Maria.

The guideline, compiled by Jessica George and Rosalind Elphick, said that stateless persons are among the most vulnerable and are often denied the enjoyment of rights such as equality before the law, the right to work, education and healthcare. “Being stateless means that individuals may not even be able to marry or register the births of their own children,” they said.

LHR, which focuses mostly on litigation to protect the rights of foreign nationals, has been running Statelessness Project since 2011, through which it says it has assisted a large number of people. “We continue to be concerned by the discrimination and absence of accessible protective measures for stateless persons. This guide provides practical guidance in the representation and provision of assistance to stateless persons.

“We hope this guide will assist legal practitioners and social workers to take on cases of stateless persons and to assist them to acquire documents and citizenship,” the organisation said.

While children of foreigners face challenges with South African citizenship, so do South African children born abroad.

The LHR says although persons born abroad to South African nationals are entitled to South African citizenship by birth, some children are turned away by Home Affairs and told they may only register their birth at the South African consulate in the country where they were born.

In 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees recorded about 12-million stateless persons around the world.