Relief as Diocese’s Five-Year Commitment to Stateless Children in South Africa Bears Fruit

The Ugandan-born Bishop said that together with Caritas Aliwal, he, in 2015, embarked on the journey to assist the 77 stateless children, refugees and migrants to be able to belong to South Africa.

Through the years, the Bishop says, the Church faced countless incidents of intimidation, one of them resulting in the closure of a facility that had been set up to deliver services to the vulnerable children.

Narrating the beginning of his journey with the stateless children, Bishop Kizito whose episcopal ordination was in February 2020 tells ACI Africa, “I started reaching out to the children who came to Sterkspruit and in Aliwal North way before I even became Bishop. I realized that the children crossed the porous border in search of food. The Kingdom of Lesotho is relatively peaceful and so, the children were obviously not fleeing violence. They were just running away from poverty.”

He added, “I was still a Priest when I joined other people in the Church to campaign for the recognition of these children. The journey wasn’t easy and it took us four years to have some of the children who had South African fathers accepted in the country. We even went to court armed with very good lawyers to advocate for the rights of these children.”

A report that the Ugandan-born Bishop shared with ACI Africa on Wednesday, July 7 indicates that of the 77 children that Caritas Aliwal North Diocese has been advocating for, 22 have already obtained South African nationality.  

“It is unfortunate that this matter had to be addressed by the Court of Law for the Department of Education and Home Affairs to act upon the enrolment of the 77 children to normal education after five years without formal education,” Bishop Kizito says in the July 7 report.

He adds, “It is with great joy that the Caritas office in the Diocese of Aliwal can joyfully report that about 22 out of 77 children have been able to obtain their birth certificates and Identity Documents. Most of the children have a South African father and a Lesotho mother.”

The Bishop says that due to the illegal status of the mother, the children and mothers were to undergo paternity testing, an activity that Caritas Aliwal facilitated with the support of the country’s Home Affairs, Aliwal Legal Aid.

Bishop Kizito says that the Caritas office has also assisted and motivated 7 families who are 100 percent Basotho to go back to their Kingdom of Lesotho.

“As we come to the end of this human rights project aimed at making these children belong, however, we remain with 31 children whose parents are not willing to return to Lesotho, their homeland,” the Bishop tells ACI Africa.

Currently, he adds, “17 children still need the help of the police or Department of social development to assist them.”

The Caritas office, the Bishop says, has become “the voice of the voiceless” and has over the years offered guidance, aid and support to the vulnerable children.

“Our office has given light to this painful crisis that is a reality in our communities,” Bishop Kizito says, and adds, “We have been able to offer and serve these children with respect and to give them their due human dignity.”

The Bishop notes that human dignity is one of the most important human values, adding, “We all need to live as human beings with value. Our office has done that by welcoming the vulnerable children in our offices with love and without any form of judgement.”

“We offer them our services with dignity. These children and their parents are accepted as friends in our office and that is what we encourage other communities to do as well. We understand them, their situation and their needs. They are not seen as competitors to the few resources that we have. They are made to feel they are part of the bigger family of Aliwal North. We instill in them the sense of belonging,” the Bishop says. 

(Story continues below)

The Local Ordinary of Aliwal admits that it has not been easy for the stakeholders involved in the children’s situation to obtain the necessary supporting documents to give the children a sense of belonging.

He says that for the project to be sustainable, South Africans need better awareness of the situation of stateless people and migrants.

The Catholic Church leader further says that Caritas Aliwal and other organizations that have come up strongly to advocate for the needs of the stateless people also need more resources in their work.

In one of the recent outreach programs, Caritas Aliwal in the company of the Local Ordinary of the South African Diocese gave out food parcels to stateless children.

“The Caritas Office has made it a commitment to make sure that these children for the last five years can have some food parcels and school uniforms, so that their self-esteem can be uplifted. All the different donations from different people have been welcomed and they have brought a huge change and positive impact to these children,” Bishop Kizito says.

He further says that with lack of food, former stateless children still miss school.

All the gains notwithstanding, the Caritas office of the South African Diocese is facing a myriad of challenges, key among them the lack of collaboration with the different departments that are working together for the vulnerable groups.

Additionally, Bishop Kizito says that a number of illegal foreign families prefer to remain in South Africa, than to return to their homeland.

He says that the ease of movement from the Kingdom of Lesotho makes immigrants flood South Africa’s border towns, thus putting a strain on its resources.

“It is common knowledge to us that these illegal immigrants are mainly in the towns that are surrounding the Kingdom of Lesotho. People from Lesotho can easily walk from the other side of the border of the Kingdom to South Africa,” he says, and adds, “There is a negative impact on our small resources, like health, and education sectors.”

The situation, the native of Uganda says, has raised resentment from South Africans who he says are also suffering because of limited resources.

The illegal immigrants have also raised the number of the unemployment in Sterkspruit and in Aliwal, Bishop Kizito says, and adds, “There are people who have just turned away their eyes from these people and have looked away on the other side, like the Priest who was going on the way of Jerusalem to Jericho and he did not take care of the man who fell victim to robber.”

Additionally, the people supported by the South African Caritas office are constantly on the move, moving from one town to another, changing locations and are at times unreachable on their phones. This way, Bishop Kizito says, one has to keep tracking them from time to time.

There is a lot of ignorance about the human rights and dignity of stateless children, Bishop Kizito says, and explains that the children who are often abused and exploited are sometimes forced to pay bribes at the border posts to be allowed entry into South Africa.

Commenting on the issue of children's involvement in bribery and border posts, Bishop Kizito says, “Our goal in this project has always been aiming at making sure that these children are integrated into our community legally without shortcuts.”

In the integration process, the Caritas office of Aliwal Diocese ensures that all refugees and migrants are registered.

Bishop Kizito says that his joy is in giving former stateless children a sense of belonging.

“These children are now able to attend schools, and now most importantly, belong. They are part of us and we thank all the role players who made it possible for some of these children to belong,” the Bishop says.

He adds, “We all need a better life. We all need to belong. No one needs to grow up without documents or to grow up in an underground world. We should not separate people from each other.”