MY PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED

Red tape put this SA citizen’s life on hold. Only when the court stepped in was he able to get the ID that will open doors for him

- MELON RADEBE

FOR years his life was in limbo. He struggled to get a job, couldn’t get a driver’s licence and he wasn’t able to get married – all because he wasn’t recognised as a South African citizen.

Tebogo Khoza (26) was born in South Africa but he had nothing to prove it. For almost a decade he’s battled to show he is who he says he is – and finally he has the precious piece of paper that will allow him to get on with his life.

The North Gauteng high court in Pretoria recently ruled the department of home affairs should register him as a South African and issue him with an identity document.

The first step was giving him a birth certificate and when he received it he could hardly believe his eyes.

“I was very happy,” he tells YOU. “On the night of the court verdict I couldn’t sleep.

“I kept thinking, ‘When I get my ID, I’m going to get a driver’s licence and a passport’.”

According to the births and deaths registration act of 1992, all children born in South Africa must be registered within 30 days.

Tebogo’s parents didn’t register him because they were undocumented immigrants – so to all intents and purposes, their son didn’t exist.

“I grew up in a rural area. At times I wanted to go live in town so I could find work there or work in a mine, but I couldn’t because I had no documents,” he recalls.

When he was six years old his mother passed away and the Thabang Children’s Project later took him in.

Cecil White, who used to work at the child and youth centre in Thabazimbi, Limpopo, accompanied Tebogo to their local home affairs office to apply for his birth certificate and ID when the boy was 16.