A group of eminent personalities in South Africa, among whom Arnold Tsunga, Chairperson of the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network have addressed an open letter to the nation saying “Every child needs a birth certificate“:
Dear South Africans,
More than a million children are born in our country each year and are issued birth certificates. But estimates are that another 100 000 children are not registered at birth in South Africa, setting them up for a lifetime of exclusion, disadvantage, and de facto statelessness.
Our progressive constitution provides the right to a name and nationality from birth for every child. It also ensures the right to primary education, to healthcare and other social services, to protection from exploitation and abuse — among numerous other important human rights. A birth certificate is key to a nationality, identity, and to the opportunities and obligations that will be part of what it means to be South African for the rest of their lives. We can take pride in these provisions for our children, and the steps and progress made by our leaders to put them in place.
Without a birth certificate, a child is at risk of being stateless, which means no country will recognize him/her as a citizen. Often, such children are excluded from accessing the fundamental rights and opportunities we take for granted, and stateless children may be joining a long line of family members before them. Because their parents and grandparents lacked identity documents, they are unable to prove their child’s right to a birth certificate, and with it, a nationality.
As supporters of UNHCR’s #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness, we call on our leaders and communities to remove barriers for these children. Let us streamline and simplify birth registration processes. Let us make sure that cost or distance from civil registration centres are not factors that condemn a child to be marginalised, and ultimately stateless.
Let us make sure that all parents understand their children’s rights and are supported to complete the steps needed to register their birth, regardless of their documentation status.
Let us ensure that safeguards against statelessness are in place to protect orphans and children found abandoned in South Africa. Above all, let’s fulfil the promise to all children throughout this country that is laid out in our constitution.
South Africa’s future prospects lie with its children, and how well we prepare them for tomorrow. By making sure that every child’s birth is registered, we can give them the best start in life: to seek health care, to be educated, to work legally, to pursue justice under the law, to vote, to marry, to provide for a family, and one day to register the birth of their own child.
By doing so, we make it possible for them to play for their national sports team, to lead a municipality, a congregation, or a nation. To become scientists, artists, writers, teachers, journalists or performers, with the potential to influence thought, or to shape our country’s history for the better, and ultimately that of our continent and the world.
Through birth registration, we have the opportunity to end one of the causes of statelessness forever. Together, let’s do so.
See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/07/10/about-the-struggle-against-statelessness/
https://mg.co.za/special-reports/2020-11-13-every-child-needs-a-birth-certificate/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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