At seven years old, Avuyile* is attending Grade R for the first time.
Not because he started school late by choice, but because for years his family could not secure the birth certificate needed to enrol him in school and access basic government services.
His story is one of thousands unfolding across South Africa as families wait years for the department of home affairs to process late birth registration (LRB) applications.
According to a parliamentary reply in February by home affairs minister Leon Schreiber, the birth certificate backlog stands at 33,386.
On February 12, about 258,000 applications remain stuck in a backlog, with some families waiting as long as seven years for decisions.
For Avuyile’s family in Khayelitsha, the struggle spans generations.
His mother, Noxolo*, who was born in 1989, only received her birth certificate in September last year and her identity document two months later.
Her mother never registered her birth because she herself did not possess an identity document, relying instead on a “book of life” issued during the apartheid era.
Now Noxolo finds herself fighting the same battle for her two children, born in 2011 and 2019.
On Wednesday, she joined a group of parents represented by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) at the Western Cape high court, where they are seeking relief for families trapped in the home affairs backlog.
In December 2024, the Children’s Institute and a group of parents represented by the LRC launched legal action against the department of home affairs.
They are asking the court to compel the department to decide the applications of 19 children and one adult involved in the case, issue birth certificates where applications are approved, investigate the causes of the backlog and develop a plan to prevent future delays.
The most common reason we encounter for babies not being registered within 30 days is that their mother did not have an ID when giving birth.
— Paula Proudlock, senior researcher at the Children’s Institute.
The case shines a spotlight on a largely hidden crisis affecting some of South Africa’s most vulnerable children, those who exist in reality but remain invisible on paper.
Without birth certificates, children can be denied school placement, healthcare services, social grants and, later in life, identity documents, employment opportunities and access to higher education.
“The most common reason we encounter for babies not being registered within 30 days is that their mother did not have an ID when giving birth,” said Paula Proudlock, senior researcher at the Children’s Institute.
She said many mothers face significant barriers to obtaining identity documents. Some were orphaned during the height of the HIV/Aids epidemic and cannot meet home affairs’ requirements for first-time applicants to be accompanied by their parents. Others fell pregnant while still at school and missed opportunities to apply for IDs, while mothers younger than 16 are often unable to apply for IDs before giving birth.
For Noxolo’s family, the consequences have been severe.
Her grandfather described the process of obtaining documentation for both Noxolo and her children as exhausting and humiliating.
“It has been such a cumbersome process to get Noxolo a birth certificate, and now it is the same struggle with her children,” he said.
The children were unable to enrol at school until a Good Samaritan from Gauteng intervened to help the family access education and the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) child support grant.
“We don’t know how long it is going to take to get their birth certificates. Maybe after this court case there will be light.”
In January, Noxolo attempted to submit late birth registration applications for both her children at the Khayelitsha Home Affairs office.
She was told that Avuyile’s application would need to be processed in Gauteng, where he was born, because officials could not verify his birth records in Cape Town. For her eldest child, who was born at Groote Schuur Hospital, she was instructed to obtain additional proof of birth documentation before the application could proceed.
According to Proudlock, the department of home affairs’ continued reliance on paper-based verification systems is one of the major causes of delays.
“Home affairs struggles to verify births that occur in a different province from where the application is being processed because officials still rely heavily on paper records and in-person verification,” she said.
“Given the high levels of mobility between provinces, home affairs should have a practical system to verify out-of-province births. We are not asking for sophisticated digital innovation; simple communication and collaboration between offices would go a long way.”
Another parent, Nomzamo*, has been waiting even longer.
Born at home on a farm outside Stutterheim in the Eastern Cape, she has no proof of birth from a healthcare facility and the witnesses to her birth have since died. The primary school she attended no longer has records confirming her attendance.
She lodged a late birth registration application in 2019. It only received attention in late 2025 before ultimately being rejected.
As a result, none of her three children, aged 19, 16 and 10, has a birth certificate.
Her eldest daughter, who passed matric in 2025, hoped to study electrical engineering but was unable to apply because she does not have an identity document.
The family’s child support grants have also been placed under review.
“The grants are being questioned because I do not have an ID and my children do not have birth certificates,” Nomzamo said.
Children’s rights advocates argue that the consequences of these delays extend far beyond paperwork.
Court affidavits detail cases of children being denied healthcare, excluded from school sports and excursions, refused admission to schools and early learning centres, placed in schools far from home and cut off from social grants intended to meet their basic needs.
While the Births and Deaths Registration Act requires births to be registered within 30 days, advocates argue that home affairs has failed to provide an efficient and accessible system for families who miss that deadline, often through circumstances beyond their control.
For families like Noxolo’s and Nomzamo’s, the court case represents more than a legal battle. It is a fight for recognition, dignity and access to the rights that many South Africans take for granted.
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