Ke a leboha, Modula Setulo. [Thank you, Chairperson.] Hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, comrades, and hon members, the late former president of the ANC, Comrade Oliver Reginald Tambo, once said, and I quote:
A country, a movement, a person that does not value its youth, does not deserve its future.
In so saying he was reflecting on the caring spirit that has characterised the ANC throughout the years, and has been carried through to date as it creates a caring, national democratic society.
The Strategy and Tactics documents of the ANC further say, and I quote:
Among the most vulnerable in society are children, and a national democratic society should ensure their protection and continuous advancement.
Birth registration is the official recording of a child's birth by the state. It is a permanent and official record of a child's existence, and is the first point of contact between a child and the state. It is the first and fundamental right in and of itself, and it is a door to other rights providing a measure of protection against age-related exploitation and abuse.
The securing of children's right to nationality will allow them to get a passport, open a bank account, obtain credit, vote and secure employment. It helps to ensure access to basic services including immunisation, healthcare and school enrolment at the right stage.
In a recent survey conducted by government, the following obstacles to birth registration were identified, among other things: ignorance of the importance of birth registration, resulting in a failure to claim the right to an identity; lack of information and mobilisation of children and youth to claim their right to citizenship; and late registration that sometimes leads to illegal immigrants obtaining identification documents fraudulently.
Some parents do not have ID documents to register their children, partly due to access issues, lack of knowledge, their illegal status in the country, or tribal customs relating to the naming of children.
In her NCOP budget speech on 15 April 2010, the hon Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, stated, and I quote:
The National Population Register Campaign's key objective is to protect and secure the National Population Register and the entry point to the register will be at birth. Hence, in this regard, we commit to the following: The registration of every childbirth within 30 days of delivery; the issuing of identity documents to every South African child, 16 years and above; and the eradication of the late registration of births by December 2010.
The current legislative mandate for notification and registration of births is contained in the Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1992, whose administration is vested in the Director-General of Home Affairs, who, in terms of the Act, is also the custodian of all birth records in South Africa.
In terms of the Act, a birth must be reported to the department by the parents or guardian within 30 days of the child's date of birth. However, what is problematic about the Act is that it allows parents and guardians, in the event of being unable to register the birth themselves, to request a third person to do so on their behalf.
This provision opens the gap for agents to actively participate in birth registration, thus resulting in an inability to conduct verification processes. In some cases it also leads to false registration. The amending Bill seeks to secure the foregoing mischief by providing that the person giving notice of birth of a child must be one of the parents of the child, or any of the parents prescribed.
The Act provides for different levels of late registration, and these are: after 30 days, but before one year; after one year, but less than 15 years; and birth notified after 15 years. Despite the fact that the longer the delay of registration, the higher the requirements of documentary proof of parentage, place of birth, and age, this provision has opened the legislation to abuse. Noncitizens have used it to acquire citizenship fraudulently and citizens have used it to entitle themselves to benefits to which they are not entitled. This situation has compromised the integrity of our National Population Register, NPR.
The Bill lays the basis for the restoration of the NPR's integrity and limits late registration of birth into one category, namely 31 days and above. It also provides for stringent requirements in the regulations.
One of the internal challenges that South Africa has suffered post- democracy is the rapid spread of HIV/Aids to pandemic levels. The scourge has hit our beloved country hard in rural and peri-urban areas. As a result, it has, in some cases, wiped out parents and guardians and left children with no parents.
A new type of household, termed "a child-headed household", has emerged because of the intensity and extent of this phenomenon. The children living under such conditions have to depend upon each other for survival, with the elder one playing the role of parent or guardian to his or her younger siblings.
However, such children are often excluded from government social security services, like the child support grant, as their birth remains unregistered for want of parents or guardians.
In some cases, these children are exploited by rogue elements who register them as being in their foster care for the purpose of gaining access to foster care grants that they then use for their narrow, selfish ends. Such persons, like scavengers, prey on the vulnerable who cannot be protected but for timely state intervention.
The principal Act only provides for the notice of birth of an abandoned child to be made by a social worker or authorised officer, where any parent of the child cannot be traced. However, it does not provide for the registration of orphaned children and thus discriminates against parentless children.
It can thus be inferred that orphan children suffer twice. Firstly, from untimely alienation from parental protection and support, and, secondly, from being denied their constitutional right to state support through being barred from registering their birth, and consequently from receiving birth certificates and ID documents. Such socioeconomic exclusion is, to all intents and purposes, without any legitimate basis, bar being without parents.
A caring society cannot continue on a trajectory that punishes children for being born and left without parents. It is in that line that we commend this Amending Bill before this House as it provides for the registration of orphaned children, thus ensuring that child-headed families get assistance to register their births.
Passing the legislation will thus change the situation of the orphaned children, some of whom, as we sit here in Parliament today deciding their fate, are huddled in shacks and low-cost houses, wondering where their next meal will come from.
In fact, some of them stay for days without home-cooked meals. Many of these orphans depend on meals they receive once a day from school feeding schemes during school days. They arrive at schools with empty stomachs and have difficulty in concentrating on their school work.
The Bill further protects such children from being preyed upon by wolves in sheep's clothing, by providing that a social worker should assist child- headed families with registration. The Bill undertakes to close this lacuna. Furthermore, it provides for conclusive proof of paternity in cases where an amendment of a birth registration of a child born of unmarried parents, who then marry each other after registration of his or her birth, is applied for in a prescribed manner.
Equally as important as birth registration, is death registration, which marks the termination of the legal personality of a natural person. The death certificate provides prima facie proof that a death has occurred and thus enables the estate of the deceased person to be divided according to the laws of succession.
The death certificate as prima facie evidence of death also activates insurance companies to release funeral policy funds. In the case of a marriage, it frees the spouse to enter into another marriage without being open to being accused of bigamy. [Interjections.]