The ghostly lives of SA’s 10 000 stateless
With no identity documents, people without nationality feel they have no future
IN LIMBO: Elizabeth (not her real name) has an Angolan father and Congolese mother “IT’S like living in a box, and you have a little hole that you can see through. You like everything you see, but you can’t get out.”
The “box” is statelessness, and Elizabeth*, 20, has been confined to it since birth. She is not recognised as a citizen of this country or any other, forced to live in Cape Town’s shadows, practically a ghost.
Born to an Angolan father and Congolese mother, she was given the same refugee status as her parents and a document stating she was born in South Africa. But no birth certificate.
When her parents’ refugee status was withdrawn, neither the Democratic Republic of Congo nor Angola would recognise her as a citizen.
Her status did not bother Elizabeth much as a child. “It has really hit me now that I am [almost] 21,” she said. “I am having issues getting an ID, issues getting a job, issues getting a driver’s licence . . .
“No one wants to take me, and no one wants to give me a nationality.”
Elizabeth was forced to abandon her dream of becoming a teacher when she could no longer afford the study fees, and was not allowed to apply for a student loan because she had no ID. She survives by working as a waitress.
She is one of an estimated 10 000 stateless people in the country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says there are 10 million worldwide. A stateless person is someone who has been denied any nationality by a state, and is not considered a national subject to its laws.
Risk factors for statelessness include birth outside your parents’ country, the death or desertion of one or both parents, loss of clinic cards, birth outside a registered clinic or hospital, and dual nationality laws.
Two main international conventions protect stateless people, but neither has been ratified by South Africa.
According to Lawyers for Human Rights no dedicated local legal mechanism exists for the identification or protection of stateless people.
“The feeling I get is that [the Department of Home Affairs] are worried it will be a floodgate thing . . . this is what I have heard from MPs [who] have said people will come from wherever and be stateless here, and come and claim citizenship,” said the head of LHR’s statelessness project, Liesl Muller.
“But that is not exactly how it will work. The international conventions do not allow everyone to get citizenship.”
Section 28 of the constitution states that every child, citizen or not, has the right to a name and nationality from birth. But for Elizabeth and many others that right has never been realised.
“Everyone is always telling me, go for your dreams and your aspirations. But does that really work for me?”
Since her parents’ refugee status was revoked they are at risk of being deported, which would leave Elizabeth alone and possibly homeless. The Legal Resources Centre has assisted her with a citizenship application and remains hopeful.
Anna* is already by herself. She arrived in South Africa with her mother in 2007, but in 2011 her mother was sent back to Angola. Anna was 15.
She was left without proof of her nationality and only has an asylum-seeker document. It allows her to work and she lodges with her uncle in Cape Town.
“The Angolan consulate says they will not give me a passport without a birth certificate. I have tried to contact family back home but I cannot reach anyone,” she said.
“I feel like . . . I’ll be stuck here forever. I’m afraid that one day the police will stop me and I will be detained.”
Home affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said there were no plans to sign the international conventions on stateless people, as the Citizenship and Births and Deaths Registration acts were adequate.
The department liaised with other countries’ embassies or sought the assistance of the International Organisation for Migration in determining nationality, and the Immigration Act allowed the minister to grant stateless people permanent residence, said Tshwete. *Not their real names
No one wants to take me, and no one wants to give me a nationality