Ending childhood statelessness by 2024: a consideration of South Africa's laws and policies in light of the United Nations High  Commisisoner  for refugees #ibelong campaign

Sader, Shazia

Ending childhood statelessness by 2024: a consideration of South Africa's laws and policies in light of the United Nations High Commisisoner for refugees #ibelong campaign

Thesis / Dissertation

2024

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Public Law

Faculty

Faculty of Law

Abstract

There are approximately 10 million people globally that are Statelessness and there are several reasons for why children in South Arica are stateless. One of the major causes of statelessness is due to the gaps in laws, policies and practices that deny an individual the right to a nationality, at birth or later in life. Stateless children do not hold a nationality and as a result they are marginalised and faced with difficulties in gaining access to basic human rights and are denied access to services such as education, healthcare, and social grants, due to not having a valid legal identity. This research paper has identified that the children of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in South Africa are vulnerable and at a particular risk of statelessness due to a denial of birth registration and other reasons. Since 1974, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been tasked with working together with governments to prevent statelessness, to identify and reduce statelessness situations, and to protect people who are recognised as stateless. In November 2014, UNHCR launched the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness which advises on 10 actions that States should implement by 2024 in order to eradicate statelessness and to ensure that policies and practices are brought in line with the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness. Out of the ten actions to end statelessness, this research paper focusses on the following five actions: 1. Ensure that no child is born stateless. 2. Accede to the UN Statelessness Conventions. 3. Ensure birth registration for the prevention of statelessness. 4. Issue nationality documentation to those with entitlement to it. 5. Grant protection status to stateless migrants and facilitate their naturalization It is unclear whether South African law, policies and practices comply with the five actions identified above. These actions are pivotal to the eradication of childhood statelessness, because as mentioned above, statelessness has a devastating impact on children. Therefore, this dissertation is concerned with the following: Given the commitments made by South Africa to end statelessness by 2024, has South Africa in the past ten years: a. Undertaken law reform to address the gaps in laws and practices to prevent childhood statelessness in terms of the five identified actions? b. Regressed in terms of its domestic laws and practices with respect to these five actions, consequently perpetuating childhood statelessness?

Keywords

public law

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