`No protection` for refugee kids

Source: The Citizen, 22/09/2016

Legal minds question ability of the constitution to cater for
stateless minors.


The constitution and the Children`s Act do not guarantee that the
needs of undocumented children are taken care of, and thus do not
afford such children protection from abuse, the Legal Resources Centre
(LRC) has said in a submission to the United Nation`s committee
reviewing South Africa`s child`s rights this week.


"In some cases, social workers are unable or unwilling to help [and
are] threatened with arrest by the department of home affairs for
assisting these children," the LRC said in its submission.


"In some instances, the social workers themselves believe that their
services are only for South African and documented children.


"Parents who give birth to children in their country of asylum are
unable to register such births with their country of origin because
doing so would inform their government, which was unable or unwilling
to protect them.


"Perhaps the most concerning violation of the rights of undocumented
persons is the constant risk and fear of arrest. It was recently
reported that an undocumented man has never left the only South
African town he knows because of fear of arrest.


"As an undocumented person, his freedom of movement is completely
nonexistent, as are any of his rights as explained above – he lives in
a world where these guarantees mean nothing in reality."


The fact is that stateless persons do not exist in any country on
paper, are not counted in national populations where they reside,
cannot own anything or travel, and no country can claim them as their
own.


This means that they "do not exist", said the LRC.


But in a twist of events earlier this month, home affairs complied
with a high court order that it grant citizenship to a previously
stateless child born in South Africa. This after it intended appealing
the decision.


In South Africa, like many countries, most services require picture
identification. These services include banks, university applications
and driver`s licences, among many other services.


"This initial failure to curb statelessness means that statelessness
becomes something that parents pass on to their children, consequently
multiplying the number of children and persons who are
stateless."


Some unaccompanied or abandoned children face a number of challenges
in getting refugee documentation to enable them to permanently
integrate, it said.