CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY 2020 Separated children unable to obtain recognition of any nationality Thembi arrived with her sister and mother in South Africa in 2002. Thembi is thought to have been born in Kenya. The reasons for her mother’s migration to South Africa are not known. Her mother was financially and psychologically unstable and was unable to care for the children. Found living in a car, the children were removed and placed in a Child and Youth Care Centre (CYCC), after which their mother disappeared. The Kenyan authorities in South Africa could not recognize them as Kenyan nationals without required documentation. The children are at risk of statelessness and have no documentation options in South Africa. They have been residing at the CYCC for seven years. Case study from: Foreign Children in Care: South Africa, Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town, 2019 J.S. migrated from Zimbabwe to South Africa with his mother when he was around 10 years old. Due to not having a birth certificate, J.S. was unable to enrol in school in South Africa. As a teenager, his mother abandoned him. J.S. survived through the kindness of friends and eventually learned how to weld. He never knew his father. Around 2008, J.S. returned to Zimbabwe to try to obtain documentation. However, no record of his birth or identity could be traced. He was further told by government officials that due to his mother having been Malawian, his father being unknown, combined with lack of any relatives and his long absence from Zimbabwe, J.S. would not qualify for Zimbabwean citizenship. Home Affairs in South Africa also turned him away and instructed him to get help from Zimbabwean authorities. J.S. does not qualify for citizenship in Malawi either, given that J.S. has no documentation to show that his mother was Malawian and he is over the legal age limit to apply. J.S. remains undocumented in South Africa, although he has lived here for nearly twenty years. He is married and has two children, but he cannot register his marriage or his children’s births due to his lack of documentation. “Citizenship means having rights. I am not safe because I don’t have papers ... I know that if I talk too much I will have problems because I don’t have papers, so even when things happen to me which I know are not right ... I’m quiet.” Case study from: “Promoting Citizenship and Preventing Statelessness in South Africa: A Practitioner’s Guide", Lawyers for Human Rights, 2014 UNHCR / December, 2020 94