Home affairs taken to court over blocked IDs

No ID, no life. This is the fate of many children in SA who are victims of their parent’s IDs being “blocked” by the department of home affairs.

Their births are never registered or are registered very late; their parents cannot access child support and other grants; they are excluded from or discriminated against at school; they struggle to access healthcare and immunisation programmes. Without an identity number they are “invisible” to the state.

These are the submissions of the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town, represented by the Centre for Child Law, admitted as a friend of the court in a case to be argued on September 20 and 21 in the Pretoria high court.

In the matter, Lawyers For Human Rights (LHR) is representing more than 100 people who have fallen victim to an “arbitrary” ID blocking practice by home affairs.

In December 2020, the department’s minister revealed in parliament that it was dealing with more than 800,000 blocked ID cases, involving alleged duplicates and what it claims are “fraudulent” IDs.

In September 2023, the department admitted in its answering affidavit that “these cases have become more and more as the years went by”, and that in May 2023, the minister had agreed to remove blocks from 1.4-million people’s IDs. However, about 700,000 IDs remained blocked at the end of July 2023.

LHR said that in the past five years it had helped more than 500 people with blocked IDs, the majority of them poor, black South Africans. None was aware of their blocked IDs until they attempted to access a service and discovered the issue “by surprise”.

None received prior notice of the department’s intention to block their IDs,or investigate their status, nor were written reasons for the decision provided.

In the application, which is being opposed by the minister and the department, LHR asks for an order declaring ID blocking unlawful and unconstitutional, an order that all IDs be unblocked, and order that the department follows “just administrative action”.

Senior researcher Paula Proudlock of the Children’s Institute addresses the harmful effect of this on children in an affidavit, using case studies of children (and their parents) which the institute is now assisting.

She said a study by Unicef estimated that in 2017 a total of 2-million eligible children had been excluded from accessing social grants in SA. The absence of a birth certificate or an ID card for the caregiver was the primary reason for this.

“Our own analysis of survey data revealed that children without birth certificates are more likely to be excluded from other government services, including social grants, healthcare, immunisation and education.”

Proudlock said the institute represented three classes of children: those with no birth certificates because their parent’s ID had been blocked; those with birth certificates but unable to apply for ID cards when they turned 16, because their parent’s ID had been blocked; and those between the ages of 16 and 18 who had IDs but whose IDs were blocked when their parent’s ID was blocked.

The majority fell into the first category; without a birth certificate the children had no access to their right to a name and nationality.

“Ultimately, they suffer significantly when they have no say or choice in the matter. It is a violation of their rights to participate in decisions that affect their rights and to have their best interests considered.”

Proudlock said the majority were poor, black and African, and were “invisible” to the department of home affairs.

In a supporting affidavit, NZ (name withheld to protect the identity of her children) said she is a SA citizen who gave birth to triplets in July 2019 at a Durban hospital. They were born premature. When she went to home affairs’ offices in Umgeni Road to register their births, she was advised that her ID was a “duplicate” — that she was sharing it with another person. The official told her that she was “like someone who does not exist”.

She was advised to fill in another application for an ID and submit her fingerprints and photos and told she would receive a call when the investigation was completed, but it could take at least six months.

In subsequent months, the bank ATM swallowed her SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) card (she was receiving a child support grant for her elder daughter), and, with the discharge from hospital of the triplets imminent, a friend raised concern with a doctor about how she was going to cope financially.

The doctor organised colleagues to donate money, clothes and nappies.

But her situation remained dire. She was evicted from her home in January 2020. In February, a dietitian at the hospital took up her cause with the department. But there was little progress. At one point, a social worker advised her to give up the babies for adoption.

In November, the institute managed to arrange child support grants for the children from Sassa and, finally, the triplets’ births were registered when they were two years old.

“It is unlikely her case would have been resolved if she had not gone to the media and if the hospital dietitian had not been advocating on her behalf by emailing DHA [department of home affairs] and reporting the matter to the public protector,” said Proudlock.

Citing another example, Proudlock said a 12-year-old girl, living with her paternal grandmother in the Eastern Cape, still had no birth certificate because the ID of her mother, who is an SA citizen, had been blocked for over a decade for being a duplicate.

The “duplication” was caused by a home affairs error when two young people, both with the same name, applied for the IDs at similar times in 2002.

“We have been able to ascertain that the East London DHA office issued IDs to both, but swapped their dates of birth by mistake. One applied for a correction and was issued with a new ID with her correct date of birth. At this stage, a ‘shared ID profile’ appears to have been created. And DHA now only has one FN (name withheld) on their system,” she said.

Proudlock said the child had been sent to the Eastern Cape because, without a birth certificate, her mother could not enrol her at a school in Cape Town.

It was easier to get admission to rural schools without a birth certificate.

“She has thus grown up separated from her mother, father and younger siblings”.

Regarding children who have birth certificates, but cannot get an ID because their parent’s ID is blocked, Proudlock said many of these children could not write matric, receive their matric results or register for tertiary education.

They cannot open bank accounts, register their cellphone or apply for funding from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme .

“Their chances of becoming employable are significantly reduced. And some become depressed and suicidal, with no hope,” she said.

Children who have IDs which get blocked at the same time as those of their parents suffer the same consequences. In addition, they cannot apply for learner’s licences or driving licences, apply for social grants for themselves, or register any babies born to them.

“The cycle of harm is perpetuated ... many mothers we have assisted only became aware that their ID was blocked when they attempted to give notice of the child’s birth. They received no prior notice.

“They are given unclear oral explanations and no written reasons. There are no prescribed forms to lodge an inquiry or start an investigation,” Proudlock said.

“In most cases, our clients were victims of identity fraud or DHA clerical errors and yet were summarily stripped of their citizenship and identity without notice or explanation and are then required to bear the onerous burden of proving again their birth, identity and citizenship. If they were orphaned or abandoned when they were a child, which many of the mothers we are assisting were, then it is impossible to produce the proof DHA demands.”

Supporting the relief sought by LHR, the institute said it also wanted statistics on the number of children adversely affected by ID blocking, as the numbers the department has provided are for blocked adults and do not account for the thousands of children whose lives are also on hold.

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