SA fathers are not allowed to register their child’s birth if they are unmarried

Due to the 1992 Births and Deaths Registration Act, unmarried fathers cannot register the births of their children, without the child’s mother.

Previously, Home Affairs could not register childbirths if they are born out of wedlock. This means that children are not recognized as SA citizens, and cannot get a birth certificate. They are recoginsed as stateless. The domino effect of this is detrimental to the lives of children.

In 2018 The Centre for Child Law at the University of Pretoria received an order from the Grahamstown High Court that deemed this section unconstitutional. Now, unmarried mothers can register their child’s birth.

However, fathers do not have these same rights. Fathers cannot register the child’s birth, be listed on the birth certificate as the father or have the child registered using his surname without the consent of the mother.

In a country where 60% of homes are without a father, now children have to bear the brunt of fatherlessness and relationship complexities.

Lawyers for Human Rights, a human rights organization, has clients who are fathers and are trying to register their children as theirs.

The center continues to challenge section 10 as unconstitutional and give fathers the same rights as their mothers, even if they are unmarried.

As of 2017, the centre knew of 33 stateless children who cannot be issued with birth certificates. Their fathers are South African, and their mothers are foreign.

If this section is not ruled unconstitutional, these children will continue being unrecognized, and they will have kids who will also struggle to access basic things like education because they too will be stateless.

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