RMRP: Statelessness Project - focussing on accessing citizenship and nationality

Birth registration refers to the permanent and official recording of a child's existence by an administrative branch of the state. Birth registration is a human right. It represents the starting point for the recognition of a person’s legal existence and is thus the key to the realisation of nearly all other fundamental rights and practical needs. Amongst these are the right to a nationality, education, healthcare and protection from child labour and trafficking. Human rights are universal. They are afforded to all human beings without discrimination. Birth registration ought to occur, without discrimination, as a result of birth on a state’s teraritory. Children born to asylum-seekers, refugees and undocumented foreigners hold this right equally to children of citizens. South Africa has made a clear commitment to these principles through ratification of the relevant human rights treaties, as well as through constitutional and other legal standards (outlined below). To be sure that we honour this commitment, it is important that all children born on the territory are issued with a birth certificate without discrimination as to their or their parents’ legal status in this country.