Identity mix-up blocks little girl's school dreams

Six-year-old Bongi (not her real name) sits on the veranda of her home in Klipgat, North West, every morning and watches as her friends walk by, chatting in their brightly coloured uniforms on their way to school.

When they return in the afternoon she listens as they loudly recite the day's lessons.

Bongi cannot understand why she can't join her friends at the nearby primary school.

"I want to go to school but the people there do not want me because my mother went to Heaven," she said, tears welling up.

Shortly before Bongi's birth, her mother discovered that her identity had been confused with that of her cousin of the same name. The error was revealed when she applied for an identity document. Bongi's mother died three years ago, before the issue was resolved.

The lack of an identity document prevented her from applying for a birth certificate for her daughter.

The school has not accepted Bongi , despite the family saying the Department of Home Affairs was investigating the error.

Bongi's uncle, who cannot be named, said the department was still interviewing family members and the process would take more than two years.

The family does not want to identify the child in case it prejudices the investigation.

"They gave her a letter confirming that they were investigating her case so she could be accepted at school but the principal will not budge, so she stays at home," he said.

Children adrift

A stateless child is a child who is not recognised by any country as a citizen because his or her parents' country of origin does not recognise them as citizens, and neither does the country in which he or she lives.

An undocumented child is one who has a state but has not obtained documentation.

Lawyers for Human Rights's Liesl Müller said the organisation had dealt with cases of children being without documents and added that half of them had one South African parent.

"South African children are denied a birth certificate usually because fathers attempt to register their children but Home Affairs requires the mother of the child to be present, and when that fails they ask for blood tests to prove the paternity, but it's too expensive and most of these people are poor," said Müller.