Primrose Moyo, right, a friend, and daughters Nosipho, front, and Ayanda with their SA birth certificates acquired through the Children's Court. Picture: Supplied
For 29-year-old Zimbabwean-born Primrose Moyo and her children Nosipho and Ayanda, being stateless has been a battle for survival in SA.
Moyo, a domestic worker, has described her journey since arriving with her parents in the country in 1998 and being disallowed to complete schooling, in a video produced by Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR).
“I arrived with my parents but stopped school in Grade 11. I could not do matric because I had no documents like a birth certificate.
“This made me sad because I was clever. My teacher used to tease me by asking why I was in the class because I knew that I couldn’t sit for exams,” said Moyo.
According to LHR attorney Liesl Muller, despite having been born in Zimbabwe, Moyo was neither registered in that country, nor documented in SA.
Lawyers for Human Rights attorney Liesl Muller. Picture: Supplied
“To be documented as a citizen, one of the legal requirements in South Africa is to produce a birth certificate from the country in which you were born.
“She remains unregistered because of that legal technicality.”
Moyo’s registration difficulties had a ripple effect on SA-born Nosipho and Ayanda, who were not accepted at any school without documentation.
“I could not register them due to lack of documents. With my mother, myself and my two kids being undocumented, we faced a crisis,” Moyo said.
“A legal intervention by my employer, Sophia Welz, through the Children’s Court, eventually led to Nosipho and Ayanda being registered as SA citizens and being able to attend school.
“If I did not have Welz, the children would today be sitting at home.”
Welz recalled how she struggled to find Nosipho a school.
“I was told she could not even put a foot in the door because she was undocumented.
“What was I going to do with a child who could not get a matric certificate due to being disallowed to start Grade 1? It has been a long journey because the mother is still unregistered.
“Nosipho’s first day in school uniform was magic.”
Former Constitutional Court judge Johann Kriegler said of Moyo’s experience: “No child should be turned away from school. This demonstrates the enormous deprivation that stateless people go through.”
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