Somali children want citizenship

‘I want them to get their SA IDs because this is the only place they know’

SOMALI refugee parents of two siblings, born and raised in Cape Town for two decades, feel their children deserve South African citizenship and IDs as they know no other way of life.

But Home Affairs Department begs to differ with Yusuf Abdi and his wife, Kinsi, who three times applied for citizenship and ID documents for their children, Najma Yusuf Abdi, who turns 21 on September 9, and Najeeb Yusuf Abdi, who turns 20 on November 9.

Abdi said his children were born in Somerset Hospital, with their births registered there, and that they had three times applied for IDs for the children after they turned 18.

But Home Affairs said the parents should first get permanent residence before their children got South African IDs, said Abdi. After fleeing from Somalia to South Africa in 1994, he and his wife applied once for permanent residence for themselves in 2010.

His children, who grew up in Woodstock, have finished high school and want to study further, but bursaries applying only to South African citizens have been refused to them, Abdi said. “Wherever they go to institutions, such as banks, universities and companies, they all ask for South African IDs.

“I want my children to get their South African IDs because this is the only place they know. They hardly understand the Somali language. They are 100% Capetonian and they speak Afrikaans and English,” he said.

Home Affairs Department spokesperson Thabo Mokgola said: “Children born of refugees automatically adopt the status of the principal applicants, who in this instance are the parents. In this regard, the children qualify for refugee IDs.”

UCT’s Refugee Rights Clinic took up the case of the two children and in correspondence with the Home Affairs Department, wrote: “Our clients have advised that they attempted to apply for citizenship at the Department of Home Affairs and were informed that they are not entitled to do so as their parents are refugees.

“We respectfully submit that this is an incorrect assertion in light of the Western Cape High Court judgment of Mariam Ali and Others v The Minister of Home Affairs and Others 15566/2016.

“In terms of Section 4 (3) of the Citizens Act, a child who was born in South Africa to parents who are not citizens, or permanent residents, may apply for citizenship when they become a major if they have lived in South Africa up until the date of becoming a major, and their birth has been registered in accordance with the Births and Deaths Registration Act 51 of 1992.

“The Western Cape High Court, in Mariam v Minister of Home Affairs, held that to deny the children of refugees the right to apply for citizenship in terms of S4 (3) of the Citizens Act infringes on the right to dignity… and is denigrating them to ‘second class’ citizens.”