Mogoeng raises concerns over child trafficking in birth registration case
The law states that the mother of a child has to give consent for him or her to be registered in the unmarried father's name.
JOHANNESBURG - Judgement has been reserved in the Constitutional Court in the case seeking to give unmarried fathers the right to register the births of their children without the mother's consent.
Currently, Section 10 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act bars an unmarried man from securing a birth certificate for his son or daughter without the consent of the child's mother.
It also states that a child born to an unmarried couple automatically receives the mother's surname.
The Centre for Child Law said that children who were not registered at Home Affairs soon after they were born are often deprived of basic rights and services.
The law states that the mother of a child has to give consent for him or her to be registered in the unmarried father's name.
However, in some instances, the mother may be deceased, absent, undocumented or cannot be located.
But Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng has a number of concerns, one being that without proper checks and balances in place it could open the door for child trafficking.
"It is not just wild discrimination, we want to make sure that the one claiming to be the father is the father, otherwise we'll easily get children with fathers that leave the country with them and do whatever they want to do with them."
Suggestions have been made that could solve this problem to make sure that the checks are in place, one being a DNA test and another involving credible family confirmation of the father's relationship with a child.
Reacting to the outcome of Tuesday's court case, human rights lawyer Jatheen Bhima said: “It’s normal people who are fathers and want to notify their child’s birth, but they can’t. So, we are saying that all those people ought not to be allowed to simply register the child’s birth because of the possibility that some people may be up to something dubious.”
