After 36 stateless years, SA woman finally gets citizenship

After a lifetime of being “stateless”, 36-year-old Primrose Modisane has finally secured a court order declaring her to be a SA citizen.

Pretoria high court judge Mandla Mbongwe ruled on April 3 that the department of home affairs must issue her with an SA birth certificate and identity document within 30 days.

After decades of bureaucracy and of what Modisane says were “hostile encounters” — with at least one official accusing her and her grandmother, then 80 years old, of being “border hoppers” — the department did not oppose the granting of the application.

The judge ordered the department to pay punitive costs.

Modisane was assisted by Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR). Attorney Palesa Maloisane said that when the application was initially issued, the department put up a notice of intention to oppose. But it did not file any further papers and “became unresponsive”.

LHR then set the matter down on the unopposed motion roll.

While Modisane had asked the court to order that the department formally apologise to her for its “callous conduct”,  Mbongwe said the court would instead express its displeasure by awarding punitive costs.

Now a mother of two, Modisane discovered her “statelessness” just before her matric exams when the department visited her school to help learners get their ID documents to sit the exams.

She had no birth certificate and was denied help. She later learnt that it was because her mother was unregistered and undocumented in SA.

Both Modisane and her mother were born in Zimbabwe (Modisane came to SA when she was five) but their SA lineage traced back, on the maternal side, to Modisane’s grandmother.

This would entitle both to SA citizenship.

In court papers, Modisane detailed a “distressing narrative” of attempts by her and her mother to get citizenship. They were passed from pillar to post. Even DNA tests, which proved their SA heritage connections, were ignored by the department.

Eventually, her mother was granted SA citizenship because she was able to produce her Zimbabwean birth certificate. She was issued with an SA ID in February 2023. That same month she was diagnosed with cancer and she died in June that year.

But the department remained insistent that Modisane must produce her birth certificate from Zimbabwe. Modisane said that her birth had never been registered there, and that she had never had a birth certificate.

She also questioned how she was supposed to travel to Zimbabwe to access birth records when she had no ID or passport from Zimbabwe or SA.

Modisane said she had hoped to study to be a social worker. But, after being denied an ID, she could not write her matric and study further. She became a domestic worker.

Without legal recognition in either Zimbabwe or SA, Modisane said she had been stateless for most of her life, unable to even open a bank account, let alone access social grants. She was left in a perpetual state of legal limbo.

Although she married a South African and had two children with him, her name was not reflected on the children’s birth certificates because she had no identity document. It was only through DNA tests that the father’s paternity was established and her children were given birth certificates.

“I have suffered severe trauma, emotional harm and blatant infringement of my basic human rights caused by the unjust and inhumane treatment inflicted on my family and me by department of home affairs officials. I was unable to complete my education. I have never voted. My mother never had the opportunity to vote because she died within months of receiving her ID,” Modisane said in her affidavit, which came before judge Mbongwe.

She said her mother had fought alongside her “up until her death”.

In a statement, LHR said the court order was “life-changing” for Modisane. “For years she fought to provide proof of her SA roots. She is one of many women and children in SA who are affected by statelessness with its destructive impact,” the LHR said.

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