Children’s rights are entrenched in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of South Africa. These rights apply to all children in South Africa and include; the right to education, the right to health care, the right to social assistance, and the right to be protected from maltreatment, abuse or degradation. However, to secure these rights, children need to be documented. Lack of documentation not only deprives children of their rights but also impacts all areas of their life. Undocumented children may be excluded from school trips, cannot travel or participate in extramural activities, cannot take a book out at the library and cannot buy a cell phone. They are also exposed to significant child protection issues such as arrest and detention, child labour, child marriage or human trafficking and face an increased risk of statelessness. In 2015, the National Steering Committee on Unaccompanied and Separated Migrant Children was established to address the unique challenges of this category of children in South Africa. The national steering committee is chaired by the National Department of Social Development (DSD) and comprises of other key government departments such as; the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DoJCD) and the Department of Health (DoH) and the South African Police Service (SAPS). The steering committee also works in collaboration with a variety of non-governmental organisations and international institutions known collectively as the National Interagency Working Group (NIAWG) on Unaccompanied and Separated Migrant Children, comprised of; Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), Save the Children South Africa (SCSA), Centre for Child Law (CCL), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF), among others. In recognition of the prevalence of lack of documentation amongst unaccompanied and separated migrant children and the critical role of documentation in the protection of vulnerable children, the National Steering Committee instituted an Undocumented Children Task Team in 2019 with the following objectives: 1. 2. to identify the cases of undocumented children within the child-care system in South Africa; to map and categorise the common documentation issues encountered by undocumented children; and www.lhr.org.za 3. to provide an analysis of the possible legal pathways to documentation or legal status under each category. In pursuance of these objectives, the Undocumented Children Task Team resolved to conduct a pilot project in Gauteng Province that would develop into a national project. The pilot project was carried out between 2019 and 2020. Over 250 cases of undocumented children got identified from data collected from social workers in the province. The analysis revealed that: 1. 2. 3. 4. lack of documentation affects both South African children and migrant children alike; lack of documentation gets exacerbated by barriers to birth registration which include; the cost of compulsory DNA tests, undocumented parents who cannot meet the documentation requirement for birth registration, inordinate delays in the finalisation of late registration of birth processes; and lack of documentation is common amongst the following categories of children: • children of undocumented South African citizen parents; • children of one non-citizen parent and one citizen parent; • children of irregular migrants; • children of refugees or asylum seekers; • children who are orphaned, abandoned or foundlings; and • unaccompanied and separated migrant children. legal pathways to documentation or legal status in South Africa include the following: • citizenship status – 170/250 cases analysed in the pilot project involved undocumented children with a claim to South African citizenship; • refugee status – 15/250 cases analysed in the pilot project involved undocumented children with a claim for asylum or refugee status in South Africa; and • immigration status – 65/250 cases analysed in the pilot project involved undocumented children who could apply for permanent residence in South Africa. Ethical disclaimer: to protect the confidentiality and identity of the children, the DSD file reference and not the names of the children were used to capture the data and statistical overview. www.savethechildren.org.za |3