According to section 9, ‘Notice of birth,’ subsection (1) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, notice of a child’s birth may be given by ‘any one of his or her parents.’ This seems to allow either parent to register a child regardless of whether the child was born in or out of wedlock. Section 10, ‘Notice of birth of a child born out of wedlock,’ discusses only under which parent's surname a child born out of wedlock may be registered. In practice, however, Home Affairs' implementation of section 10 prevents single fathers of children born out of wedlock, or fathers who have an ID in cases where the mother is undocumented, from registering their children. Two possible scenarios are described by section 10 for the registration of a child born out of wedlock: (1) either the single mother presents herself and registers her child alone, in her own name [in terms of subsection (1)(a)], or (2) the mother presents herself and her child together with the father [in terms of subsection (1)(b)], in which case they can chose to register the child under either parents' surname. The notice of birth form, DHA 24, requires a mother to sign her consent to the father’s acknowledgement of paternity. Accordingly, the registration of a child born out of wedlock is only envisioned in terms of the Act in the presence and with the consent of the child’s mother. The father may not have his paternity recognised at registration of the child’s birth without the signed consent of the mother. To complicate matters further, even where both parents are present, LHR has seen many cases where the father is not able to register a child if the mother is undocumented because Home Affairs requires the mother's proof of identity in order for her to sign consent to acknowledgement of paternity. See current section 10(2): ... the notice of birth may be given under the surname of the mother if the person mentioned in subsection (1)(b), with the consent of the mother, acknowledges himself in writing to be the father of the child and enters particulars regarding himself upon the notice of birth. This problem often arises in cases where the mother is an undocumented foreigner who cannot get identity documents from her country of origin and the father is a South African. Even though the father is a citizen, with an ID, in LHR's experience Home Affairs refuses to register the child without the mother's identity document. Even temporary asylum seeker permits are permissible proof of identity, but mothers without any documents are simply turned away without receiving birth certificates for their children. LHR sees this often in the case of mothers from Lesotho (who tend to not have any identity documents but also do not apply for asylum). 78 Promoting citizenship and preventing statelessness in South Africa: A practitioner’s guide