Education South Africa Project #33612

Save children from statelessness in South Africa

by Lawyers for Human Rights

Project Report | Jan 23, 2026
STATELESSNESS UNIT ACTIVITIES (OCTOBER 2025 - JANUARY 2026)

By Wayne Ncube | National Director

Public Interest Law Gathering 2025

1. Introduction
This report outlines the key activities, strategic advances, and challenges faced by the Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) Statelessness Unit over the last four months. Supported by our GlobalGiving community, our work continues to focus on eradicating statelessness through a multi-pronged approach of strategic litigation, community empowerment, regional advocacy, and direct client assistance. This period has been marked by significant advocacy milestones and persistent systemic barriers, particularly in accessing essential documentation.

2. Capacity Building & Community Workshops
Our commitment to empowering communities and strengthening the civil society ecosystem remained a priority.

SADC Civil Society Organisation (CSO) Forum Side Event (October 2025): LHR convened a critical regional dialogue in Madagascar, bringing together advocates to discuss the intersection of statelessness, digital identity systems, and civil registration. This positioned our national work within the broader Southern African Development Community (SADC) advocacy landscape, fostering collaborative strategies.
Public Interest Law Gathering (PILG) 2025 (October 2025): We hosted a powerful panel discussion to elevate the gendered dimensions of statelessness. Centering our “Her Document, Her Dignity” campaign, the session highlighted the intergenerational and intersectional impact of documentation denial on women and children, advocating for human rights-centered policy reform.
Southern Africa Nationality Network (SANN) Regional Meeting (November 2025): LHR played a leading role in co-designing and facilitating this annual gathering in Johannesburg. The meeting strengthened coordination among lived-experience advocates and member organisations across Southern Africa, solidifying shared priorities on the right to nationality.
Pan-African & Global Advocacy Engagements: Our team contributed expert briefings at the Pan-African Parliament on model nationality laws and actively represented Southern African perspectives in global forums, including the Global Movement Against Statelessness (GMAS). These efforts ensure regional challenges inform international advocacy agendas.

3. Strategic Litigation: Securing Rights Through the Courts
Our litigation efforts have seen both landmark victories and critical progression in challenging unconstitutional laws and practices.

Landmark Victory in Blocked ID Case (Mazibuko v Minister of Home Affairs): The court confirmed that the Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA) practice of blocking identity numbers without a fair process is unconstitutional and invalid. We are now engaged in the vital monitoring and implementation phase, assisting affected individuals to finally access their IDs and restore their rights.
Challenging Restrictive Citizenship Regulations (LHR v Minister of Home Affairs): Our constitutional challenge to the 2023 Citizenship Act regulations is progressing through the High Court. All pleadings, including our Heads of Argument, have been filed. We await a hearing date for this crucial case, which seeks to overturn regulations that unlawfully restrict access to citizenship by birth.
Combatting Derivative Deprivation of Nationality: We are advancing a strategic case on behalf of young adults born in South Africa who are denied their first ID cards solely because a parent’s ID is blocked. This matter, developed in partnership with pro bono counsel, challenges a DHA circular that effectively punishes children for their parents’ administrative status, a practice we argue constitutes derivative deprivation of nationality.
Building Jurisprudence on Women & Statelessness: We have instituted a High Court application to address the specific and severe impacts of documentation denial on women and the intergenerational statelessness that results. This case is part of a deliberate strategy to develop stronger legal protections for women and children affected by these issues.

4. Direct Client Assistance & Case Management
The need for direct legal services remains acute, with DNA testing requirements representing a major financial and logistical barrier for our most vulnerable clients.

Ongoing Case Resolution: We continue to manage a significant caseload of individuals and families who cannot access birth registration or citizenship due to the Department of Home Affairs’ DNA testing requirements.
Critical Barrier – DNA Testing Costs: A primary obstacle to resolving these cases is the prohibitive cost of private DNA tests, necessitated by extensive backlogs in state facilities. We are currently facilitating tests for multiple families, including:
- A South African mother struggling to register her children born in Mozambique.
- A grandfather seeking to register his grandchildren while their mother is incapacitated.
- A large family with 11 children, only two of whom are documented.
- Several cases involving fathers seeking to establish paternity to register their children.
Estimated Financial Need: The expedited testing required to resolve just the current urgent cases in our pipeline is estimated at ZAR 28,960. Timely resolution of these cases is essential to securing these individuals’ fundamental rights to identity, education, and healthcare.

5. Impact & Continuing Challenges
Thanks to donor support, we have empowered communities, set vital legal precedents, and provided direct aid to those in need. However, systemic hurdles persist. The DHA’s reliance on expensive, privately-conducted DNA tests places an insurmountable burden on marginalized individuals, effectively rendering their constitutional right to a nationality contingent on their economic means. Our advocacy and litigation directly target this injustice.

6. Acknowledgements & Path Forward
We extend our deepest gratitude to our GlobalGiving donors. Your support fuels our integrated approach—from the courtroom to the community hall. As we move forward, our priorities are: (1) securing a hearing date for our citizenship regulations case, (2) expanding the “Her Document, Her Dignity” campaign, and (3) urgently raising funds to cover DNA tests for our current clients, allowing us to clear our backlog and take on new cases. Together, we continue the fight to ensure everyone has the right to belong.

Lesotho for the 46th ACERWC

Statelessness workshop

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Sep 19, 2025
Project Report September 2025

By Wayne Ncube | National director

LHR Statelessness team at an advocacy event

Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) continues to advance its mission to protect children from statelessness through legal support, strategic litigation, and public advocacy. In recent months, we’ve made significant strides:

DNA Testing: A Critical Barrier to Legal Identity

Access to legal identity remains one of the most urgent challenges for children at risk of statelessness in South Africa. In several cases currently supported by LHR, children born in South Africa are being denied birth registration due to the Department of Home Affairs’ requirement for DNA testing to prove paternity—even when one parent is a documented South African citizen or permanent resident.

These requirements disproportionately affect families facing poverty, displacement, or separation. In some instances, fathers are present and documented, yet the absence of a DNA test prevents registration. In others, children born to undocumented mothers and documented fathers are denied recognition, despite clear eligibility under South African law. The cost of DNA testing—often exceeding R3,000 per family—is prohibitive for many, and the lack of state-funded alternatives leaves children in legal limbo.

As of May 2025, LHR had only R794 remaining for DNA testing. In response, we paused new tests and launched a sustainable fundraising strategy. With support from our Communications team, we developed animated and AI-generated content to promote our GlobalGiving page and integrated this appeal into our Her Document: Her Dignity campaign. Legal practitioners and philanthropists have been invited to contribute, and we are awaiting updated figures from Finance following this renewed push.

The need remains urgent. Without birth certificates, children are excluded from education, healthcare, and social services. LHR continues to advocate for policy reform while working to secure resources that will allow us to assist families facing these barriers. DNA testing is not just a technical requirement—it is a gatekeeper to dignity, protection, and full participation in society.

Court Victory: Primrose Modisane

After decades of statelessness, Primrose Modisane received her South African birth certificate and ID following a Pretoria High Court order and public pressure. This victory restores her dignity and enables full participation in society.

Litigation Updates

We continue to seek compliance with the blocked IDs judgment and support first-time applicants for IDs, who face impossible verification requirements due to abandonment. We are increasingly collaborating with private law firms to expand access to justice for similarly placed clients.

Advocacy & Regional Engagement

LHR co-hosted a session at the Southern African Civil Society Forum in Madagascar, calling for ratification of the AU Protocol on Nationality and universal birth registration. We also hosted the Her Document: Her Dignity webinar, spotlighting the gendered dimensions of statelessness and mobilising pro bono legal support.

Looking Ahead

Upcoming engagements include an ACERWC side event in Lesotho, RightsCon 2026 in Lusaka (focused on digital rights and IDs), and the SANN Annual Meeting in Johannesburg to strengthen regional collaboration and sustainability.

Court success for our team

Panel discussions with the team

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May 21, 2025
Connected, Documented, and Recognised

By Wayne Ncube | National Director

LHR's Thandeka with co-panelists at @rightscon

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

Training social workers & paralegals

Campaign launch at human rights festival

success for our client in court

Links:

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