By Wayne Ncube | National Director
A Statelessness Advocacy Update from Lawyers for Human Rights
May 2025
Dear Friends and Partners,
As the world continues to move toward digital governance and identity systems, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) remains focused on ensuring no one is left behind — particularly undocumented and stateless people, whose exclusion from state systems poses an urgent human rights challenge.
In this update, we share our recent work in litigation, regional advocacy, digital rights, capacity-building, and tangible wins for those denied their right to identity, nationality, and dignity.
Digital Identity: The Promise and the Peril
This quarter, our Statelessness Unit intensified its work on the intersection of statelessness and digital ID systems, which are increasingly becoming gatekeepers to social protection, mobility, and dignity.
In South Africa, we have been closely monitoring the Department of Home Affairs’ move toward smart ID systems, raising critical questions: Who is excluded from these systems? How do we ensure that digital transformation doesn’t entrench or create statelessness? We’re calling for inclusive, rights-based frameworks that serve all who live in South Africa — not just the documented.
On a regional and global level, we shared our insights and advocacy at two major platforms:
RightsCon (Taiwan), where we explored the human rights implications of digital megaprojects that aim to reguate nationality, social protection, public services and more, and;
Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF, Zambia),
where we brought the lived experiences of South African communities into global conversations on digital identity. Statelessness is not a national problem — it is inherently regional, requiring cross-border dialogue and action.
Litigation for Systemic Change
Our litigation strategy remains at the heart of our push for justice. In 2025, we continued our work on the blocked ID litigation, a case that affects over 700,000 people and their children whose identity documents have been cancelled or blocked without due process.
This issue doesn’t just impact paper records — it devastates real lives: preventing access to schools, jobs, grants, healthcare, and even burial services. Our court cases aim to set legal precedents that compel systemic reform within the Department of Home Affairs.
In May 2025, we secured a landmark court order that resolved the citizenship case of a long-standing LHR client. After decades of bureaucratic limbo, during which they were unable to open a bank account, access grants, or secure formal work, the court ordered that they be issued both a birth certificate and South African citizenship.
This judgment has already had ripple effects: it has inspired other civil society organisations to take up similar cases, strengthening the movement for identity justice.
Feminist Advocacy: Her Document, Her Dignity
In a powerful move, the Statelessness Unit officially launched the “Her Document: Her Dignity” campaign — a public awareness initiative centred on the lived experiences of women and girls affected by statelessness.
The campaign highlights how documentation is not just a legal tool — it’s a passport to dignity, agency, and survival. Women without ID are often shut out of clinics, police protection, or inheritance. Their statelessness is gendered, and our campaign calls for legal reforms and intersectional advocacy to ensure that no woman is rendered invisible.
Knowledge is Power: Training the Front LinesTraining Social Workers: Protecting Stateless Children
LHR continues to co-facilitate inter-sectoral training for social workers and service providers working with unaccompanied and separated migrant children. These sessions are critical in building awareness of:
Bottlenecks in birth registration,
Exemption applications,
Pathways to citizenship,
And the broader risks of childhood statelessness.
By empowering social workers, we’re building a protection system that can identify and address documentation crises early — before they become lifelong legal burdens.
Legal Symposiums: Strengthening the Legal Community
We also hosted rotational legal symposiums in partnership with ProBono.org, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, and the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). These sessions create space for lawyers of all experience levels to engage in:
Case law analysis,
Strategic litigation planning,
Shared advocacy approaches on nationality law and the rights of stateless persons.
The symposiums have sparked new collaborations and built a shared vision of how to strategically challenge exclusions in law and practice.
Looking Ahead
We are pushing for reforms to the South African Citizenship Act that will guarantee recognition for every child born in South Africa, regardless of their parents’ status. We are also preparing for new advocacy measures in response to emerging digital exclusions and are continuing to drive regional policy engagement through networks and conferences across Southern and East Africa.
In Closing
Every legal victory, every training session, and every policy engagement is part of a larger vision: a world where identity is not a privilege but a right, and no one is made invisible by bureaucracy.
We are deeply grateful for your continued partnership. Your support enables us to challenge the systems that exclude, and to build a future where everyone is seen, heard, and counted.
With thanks and solidarity,
Lawyers for Human Rights
Links:
By Wayne Ncube | National Director
By Thandeka Chauke | Statelessness Project Head
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