Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable - Unicef

Department of Home Affairs
Reasons for HIV/AIDS-affected children’s poor access to enabling documents
HIV/AIDS often aggravates poverty levels in families. This in turn aggravates the cost
barriers preventing access to enabling documents. 18
Sick parents and caregivers often cannot attend to the registration of births themselves
and this creates a need for additional supporting documents when someone other than
the biological parent seeks to register the birth of the baby (these additional documents
come at extra effort and cost for the child’s caregivers).
Often children are cared for by elderly caregivers, which results in additional barriers to
accessing birth certificates. These include the difficulties of travelling and the fact that
the elderly are not the target of registration messages in awareness-raising and publicity
campaigns.
The prevalence of child mobility in families affected by HIV/AIDS often results in lost
documents and difficulties in accessing the parents’ and/or the child’s documents
Family feuds involving orphans can result in the withholding of the child’s documents
from the custodial caregiver.
The stigma of HIV/AIDS inhibits relatives from applying for documents as they do not
want to explain the situation to judgemental officials.
The prevalence of orphaning compounds the plethora of maternal and paternal identity
issues inherent in the birth registration regulatory processes. For example, proof of
maternal identity is problematic if a child’s mother has died.
The Turnaround Strategy
The DoHA initiated a Turnaround Strategy in 2007 to address a number of the underlying
obstacles preventing realisation of the right to an identity, to birth registration and
other enabling documents. The Strategy aims to create a ‘more efficient, customer- and
business-friendly Home Affairs structure able to fight corruption effectively, deliver
services on time, and serve the needs of the population’ (DoHA 2007: 8).
The Department notes in its 2010–2013 Strategic Plan that the Turnaround initiatives have
reduced errors, increased efficiency and reduced fraud through more stringent security
features in order to secure the identity and status of citizens, and that this has ‘been
particularly appreciated by the rural poor’ (DoHA 2010: 10).
The Department has announced plans to further reduce fraudulent sales of enabling
documents by corrupt officials and syndicates through legal amendments to the births
registration process, which will see the early registration of birth (in other words, registration
within 30 days of birth) as the only entry point to the NPR for citizens. The corollary of
this is that the late birth registration process (registration after the age of one year) will be
replaced with a far more stringent process (DoHA 2010: 10). These proposals emerged in
two Bills tabled before Parliament in July 2010, namely the Births and Deaths Registration
Amendment Bill (B18–2010) and the South African Citizenship Amendment Bill (B17–2010).
18 Giese S, presentation made to the SA Aids Conference, April 2009 (unpublished; a copy of the presentation is in the
possession of the author of this report)
17