Pretoria - The Department of Home Affairs has refuted allegations that it is failing abandoned children, as reported in The Star on Thursday.
The Star claimed that 80 abandoned babies and children will remain in children's homes around Johannesburg because Home Affairs refuses to issue them with birth certificates.
"The Department is currently seized with the implementation of its National Population Register (NPR) Campaign, which seeks to clean up the country's population register with a view to ensuring its credibility, integrity and security," said Deputy Director General Vusumuzi Mkhize.
"As part of this campaign, parents are urged to register their babies within 30 days of birth, as is legally required in South Africa. In this way, even in the unfortunate event that a child loses both its parents, the nationality of the child and identities of the parents will be recorded in the population register."
Mkhize said they were also increasing the number of hospitals linked to Home Affairs offices so that babies could be registered before they left hospital with their mothers. Birth certificates will now include babies' ID numbers and the names of their mothers, which will make it easier to confirm nationality.
"Two legal instruments which will also assist this process are currently before Parliament - the South African Citizenship Amendment Bill and the Births and Deaths Registration Amendment Bill. Recently passed into law, these bills will ensure children born in South Africa or to South African parents are registered accurately," added Mkhize.
"However, despite these measures which will ensure children do not face the same plight as those in the story [in The Star], we are deeply concerned about the welfare of children who cannot be registered due to insufficient proof of their parent's identities."
He said officials in the department have been instructed to act speedily to ensure this matter is resolved quickly.
"The children that cannot be confirmed as South African will be issued with hand written certificates to ensure they are accounted for but will not be registered in the country's population register until proof of citizenship is obtained," said Mkhize.
