House Chairperson, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, and members, the Bill deals precisely with issues which have been identified as creating blockages in recognition of the rights of the greater posterity of our citizenry. However, I suggested some significant changes in the portfolio committee without success. The department ignored the process of public submissions on the Bill, which could have been of assistance.
House Chair, if I could look at the whole process here, this kind of situation paints a quintessentially middle-class picture, and it is simply not how the majority of South Africans live.
Children often live with relatives, their fathers are often absent, and their mothers are often sick. The scourge of HIV and Aids has led to a plethora of unconventional family settings in South Africa. These families are equally worthy of respect and a chance to provide the best life for the children in their care.
The process of legislating to suit the middle class, by setting requirements that only the middle class is likely to meet, will amount to failure on the part of the government. Our legislation must serve and protect our people, not the other way around. Our people should not be oppressed by our legislation.
Hon members, in practice, as your own constituents will undoubtedly tell you, there are countless adults who have never had Identity Documents, and who have many children who were never registered at birth. Therefore, to use a parent's appearance on the Population Register and/or ID as a requirement for registering a child, blatantly ignores the reality in our country, especially in villages in our native land.
Clause 4(a) and (b) and clause 6 are wholly unsuitable for the majority of people in the South African society. These clauses arrogantly presume that all South African children are born into conventional family units, where no one is sick; the child's primary caregivers are his or her biological mother and father; the mother and father are married; and that the mother, father and child are living together.
Inyaniso yile yokuba akunjalo ke, ngoba nangoku kule Ndlu, baninzi abazali abahlala bodwa engekho amaqabane abo. [The truth is that it is not like that, because even in this House, there are many parents who stay alone without their spouses.] Speaker, this picture is far removed from the reality on the ground. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 is an agreement by the governments of the world stating what rights children should have. It covers rights on just about everything and applies to everyone under the age of 18 years.
Bearing in mind that 1989 marked the 30th Anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the 10th Anniversary of the International Year of a Child, article 2 says:
States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child or his or her parents or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or . . . other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.
Article 6 says:
States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.
Therefore, that is an inalienable right. I recently helped the 36-year-old ...
... uMama uNokwanda waseQonce, ongazange abenasazisi nesatifiketi sokuzalwa oko wazalwa. Mna ndizodibana naye apha e-Crossroads, kula ngingqi yam yovoto, mna ke, njengamntu usebenzayo. Ndithe xa ndifika ndancedwa ngamagosa phaya njengokuba sasincedisana, Sihlalo. Siye sahamba-hamba ke sizama ukulungisa loo nto, ngelingeni saphumelela ke kuba kukho mna. (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[... Mrs Nokwanda from King William's Town, who never had an Identity Document and a birth certificate ever since she was born. I, as a person who does her job, met her in Crossroads, in my constituency. Chairperson, when I arrived there, I worked with the officials as we normally do. We went around trying to solve this and at last we succeeded because of my presence.]
She has never seen the door of a classroom. Her three children are subjected to the same treatment. This Bill paints a melancholy picture of this Parliament albeit the prudent principle that it has set out to serve - you are saying that you are an activist Parliament.
Sections 28 and 29 of the Constitution recognise the rights of children to life, shelter, name, nationality and the right to education. To allow only the social workers to administer the birth information of a displaced or orphaned child, places a burden on the already squeezed resources, because the country is reeling under a shortage of more than 40 000 social workers, as we speak. You must accredit those organisations that are currently working with children.
Ndithetha ngoomama abahlala begade abantwana phaya kwezaa ndawo sihlala kuzo, ezilokishini nasezilalini kwenzeka loo nto yabantu abakhulisa abantwana abangengobabo. Thina sinokuncedisa bona ke, ngoba kaloku bahleli begade aba bantwana. Thina singabalawula, sibanike iziqinisekiso kulo msebenzi bawenzayo. Enkosi. [Ixesha liphelile.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[I am talking about women who are guardians in our communities, in townships and villages, and this is what is happening where you find people who are taking care of children who are not even theirs. We can assist them, because they are looking after these children. We can monitor, and give them guardianship certificates for what they are doing. Thank you. [Time expired.]]