40 years without an ID: Mfuleni mother says her children are paying the price

Ask AI 3minNontandi Harmaans, 40, from Mfuleni says she has spent her life without an identity document, while her three children have no birth certificates and cannot access the child support grant.

For four decades, Nontandi Harmaans has been unable to obtain a South African identity document, leaving the Mfuleni mother dependent on irregular work and struggling to support her three children.

She earns as little as R150 a day and says employers have turned her away because she cannot produce an ID. Her children also lack birth certificates and have been unable to access the child support grant, she says.

“I am so hurt by this. Because I cannot even secure work. I am suffering with my three kids. Sometimes we sleep on an empty stomach. They also can’t access the child support grant. I work odd jobs in town in order for us to survive, and get paid only R150 per day, sometimes even less. I am mistreated by the people I work for but I don’t have a choice. People have come to me with job opportunities and I could not take the job because I don’t have an ID,” Harmaans said.

She said she had to approach her children’s school principal and explain the family’s circumstances before they were accepted at school.

Harmaans’s mother, Nozixhamle Mandla, said her daughter was born at home in Lady Frere in the Eastern Cape. She said she did not take the baby to a clinic or hospital, and no birth certificate was issued.

Mandla said the family had tried several ways to resolve the problem, both in the Eastern Cape and in Cape Town, but had been unable to obtain the documents required.

“The biggest issue is that I gave birth to her inside our home back in Lady Frere, and I never went to the clinic or hospital. So she never had a birth certificate all her life. Last time in Bellville they said we must go back to our rural area and ask our local chief,” Mandla said.

“It pains me to see my daughter struggling like this and I don’t know how to help her.”

Nontandi Harmaans and her Mother Nozixhamle Mandla. Haarmans has spent her entire life without an ID document.

Nomfundo Mange, a resident who is close to the family, said she had known about Harmaans’s identity document problem since 2005.

She said she had approached the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) for assistance, but the organisation had requested paperwork the family could not provide.

“Since then I have been trying hard to solve the ID issue. I have taken this to SANCO to help us, they said we must come with some paperwork. We did that, but they couldn’t help her. Her mother said she was scared of going to the clinic back then. I have exhausted all avenues that I can reach. What frustrates me even worse is seeing on the news that foreign nationals are getting South African IDs without an issue,” Mange said.

Mange said the family had also approached the Department of Home Affairs office in Khayelitsha, where they were asked to produce documents they could not obtain.

She said local leaders had also been approached, but the family remained without a solution.

Mange expressed concern about the effect the situation was having on Harmaans’s emotional wellbeing, saying she had become increasingly distressed and had spoken about taking her own life.

The Department of Home Affairs had not responded to media enquiries at the time of publication.

The family continues to seek a way to obtain the documents Harmaans needs to secure an identity document and register her children’s births.