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Over 1,000 fake marriages annulled since last year - Motsolaedi

Source: Eyewitness News, 10/07/2019


Last month, Eyewitness News published an exposé which detailed how women were fighting for more than a decade to get out of fake marriages.
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Wednesday mentioned the issue during his budget vote speech in Parliament.
The Home Affairs Department has annulled over 1,000 of the 2,132 fake marriages since April 2018.
The minister invited one of these women to Parliament to share her story and to apologise to her.
Thami Swartbooi`s identity was stolen by another woman who`d gotten hold of her ID number.
“Two kids which she never met before were registered as hers in legal documents. She couldn`t get officially married, because the law would not allow anybody to marry twice unless in the case of divorce or death. Her life went into a tailspin and a virtual hold. She lived this horror for 14 years, fortunately, we reached Thami when the story was reported in the media and we gave her back her identity.”
Motsoaledi said Swartbooi was working with the department.
“We have asked her to become an ambassador of Home Affairs on identity fraud and fraudulent marriages. We want to work with her to identify women who are already living the situation that she went through.`
He said the identity thief was on the run.


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