Save children from statelessness in South Africa

Baby David’s mom, Litha, was born and grew up stateless in South Africa. Litha’s own mother and father died before she was old enough to understand that she would be need them to prove her nationality one day. They lived between Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa and Litha doesn’t know which countries’ citizenship they had. Litha has been unable to prove her citizenship in any of these countries for 7 years.

When Litha gave birth to Baby David, the Department of Home Affairs explained that unregistered mothers cannot register their babies’ births. Litha applied for permanent residence as a stateless person in South Africa 5 years ago, but had never received a response from the Minister of Home Affairs and until she had documents, her baby, David, could not get a birth certificate.

LHR assisted her to make an application to the High Court in which she asked the court to consider her and David’s citizenship. David was already 2 years old, and Litha 27, when the High Court made a judgement declaring both Litha and David to be South African citizens by birth. Litha said: “Now I can study to become a pilot. I can dream again.”

Without pro bono legal intervention Litha would not be able to afford a court application. The generous donations of our donors have made it possible for David and Litha to come this far. Unfortunately, the Department has not yet issued David’s birth certificate. We may need to intervene once more to ensure he gets full access to his right to nationality.

Since July 2019, LHR has assisted 27 additional children in similar situations. Some of them are children whose parents are in jail and cannot accompany them to Home Affairs. As a result they are denied IDs when they turn 16 and they risk not being able to write their matric. LHR continues to intervene on these children’s behalf.

To listen to Litha and David's story follow the link below to the Institute for Statelessness and Inclusion's (ISI) podcast series. For What’s Best for Children’s Nationality, ISI has partnered with UNICEF to produce a six-part podcast series that aims to build knowledge around childhood statelessness and the right of every child to a nationality by exploring good practices. As such the series features childhood statelessness stories, challenges and successes from real-life settings. 

We thank you for your continued support to make our work possible.

Links:

• What's Best for Children's Nationality Podcast