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South Africa's one million invisible children without birth certificates

(www.france24.com)
116 points mooreds | 2 comments | 14 Oct 25 01:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.477s | source
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stroebs ◴[21 Oct 25 14:12 UTC] No.45656069[source]▶
My father (born in ZA) had to re-register his birth at 65 when emigrating to the UK on a visa. The ZA government had no record of his birth, despite him having a drivers license, passport, tax returns for 40+ years…

This is the least bit surprising coming from a country that is in steady decline.

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1. CaptainOfCoit ◴[21 Oct 25 15:40 UTC] No.45657158[source]▶
FWIW, I moved to a European country about 20 years ago. The first 10 years I thought everything was fine, but once I was applying for something, they said that it seemed like I never actually properly entered the system, but had just began. Most public services worked alright regardless. Cue some confusion for a while, and some filled forms later, and I finally got legally approved and finalized to actually stay, ten years after I initially arrived.

Bureaucracy can be crazy at times, and sometimes it seems like data just gets lost, for whatever reason.

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2. pjc50 ◴[21 Oct 25 15:48 UTC] No.45657256[source]▶
> they said that it seemed like I never actually properly entered the system, but had just began

Can be quite a risk for people who entered a long time ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal

> Bureaucracy can be crazy at times, and sometimes it seems like data just gets lost, for whatever reason.

The easiest way of reconciling data with reality if the rules don't allow changing the data is to change reality. By deporting people.