After 36 years as a stateless person, Primrose Modisane is finally a South African

Opening a bank account, accessing public healthcare or having your name on your children’s birth certificate are everyday, mundane things that millions of South Africans take for granted.

However, for Primrose Modisane, these simple formalities were impossible for 17 years because the Department of Home Affairs did not recognise her as a South African citizen.

Years of trekking to Home Affairs’ offices in Germiston, a documentary about her struggles living as a stateless person, multiple DNA tests, an address to Parliament’s home affairs committee and even a court order from the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria in April, compelling Home Affairs to recognise her as a citizen, did not help. Modisane remained stateless.

That was until the Home Affairs called Modisane’s employer, Sophia Welz, on Monday, 4 August to inform her that the birth certificate was ready for collection, more than four months after the court ordered the department to register her citizenship, her birth, and to issue her birth certificate and identity document within 30 days.

“When we got the call, Prim just fell to the ground; she could not believe it was finally happening. She just collapsed,” Welz told Daily Maverick on Tuesday, 5 August.

Modisane discovered that she was undocumented in 2008, when she was in Grade 11 and had applied for her ID to write her matric exams. While she was born in Zimbabwe when her mother moved there from South Africa, her birth was never registered. 

After moving back to South Africa with her parents in 1998 to live with her grandmother in Vosloorus, her birth was still not registered because of a legal technicality that required a person to be registered in the place of their birth.

A moment of recognition

Daily Maverick was at Home Affairs’ Germiston office on Tuesday and watched as an official handed Modisane her official birth certificate. Surrounded by her family, Welz and her supporters, Modisane held on to the document and smiled from ear to ear, overjoyed that she had finally been recognised as a South African citizen.

“I have got my birth certificate. I can see my name is on it and my surname like this, is my paper that I am holding in my hand,” Modisane told Daily Maverick, giggling with glee. “It will take time for me to believe that this is really happening today.” 

Modisane said the first thing she would do, now that she had been recognised as a South African citizen, would be to open a bank account, have her name added to her children’s birth certificates and register her youngest child for school.“Then I will go to my mother’s grave and tell her that this suffering is finally over,” she said.

Welz, who has fought alongside Modisane for several years, said that she, her family and her father, former Constitutional Court Justice Johann Kriegler, were grateful that the first step had been taken to give Modisane the dignity and opportunity she deserved.

Read more: David vs Goliath: Administrative abuse of moms results in legal action against Home Affairs

“Just seeing the smile on her gogo’s face was more than we can say. Now is a chance to put her life together, to go and get her bank account, to go and get on her first flight, to get her driver’s licence, to vote. There are so many opportunities now. This means everything,” Welz said.

Daily Maverick spoke to Modisane’s grandmother, Barbara Modisane, as she waited for her granddaughter to collect her birth certificate.

Speaking in Setswana, Barbara said, “I am content, I am at peace. We have been fighting this battle for so long, and now we can finally rest.”

Justice delayed

Going to Home Affairs’ offices in Germiston was not the original plan. After waiting for more than four months for Home Affairs to comply with the court order, Modisane and her supporters planned to hold a media conference to shed light on her struggles.

Daily Maverick visited Modisane, Welz and Justice Kriegler at their home in the heart of Johannesburg on Monday as they prepared for the media conference where she was to share her years of “struggle, humiliation and denial of basic rights, including healthcare, education, and financial freedom”.

During the interview, Modisane detailed how her mother, who was also an undocumented South African citizen, died from cancer because she was denied medical care, a result of her being undocumented. Modisane shared how she struggled to register her two children’s birth because she was not recognised as a citizen, and how she could not finish school because of her documentation status.

“I don’t know what I would have done if I were allowed to finish matric, but I know I would have furthered my studies. I was bright in school, but I wasn’t given the opportunity to see how far I could go in life,” Modisane said.

Justice Kriegler, one of the first judges appointed to the Constitutional Court, said that it was a miscarriage of justice that Home Affairs failed to comply with the order in the time frame stipulated by the court.

“I had assured this young woman that the law would see her right, and I had faith in the law. I lived the law my whole life. To realise that the Department of Home Affairs did not listen to the court left me profoundly disappointed and disenchanted.”

Mere hours after the interview, Home Affairs called to say her birth certificate was ready. 

Even now that Home Affairs has finally complied with the order, Justice Kriegler cannot help but feel disappointment.

“This should never have taken this long. It should not take a court order and the threat of a media briefing for a South African citizen to be acknowledged in her own country. While we celebrate this development, we must also reflect on the many other individuals who remain stateless and unheard, and recommit to ensuring that no one else is forced to fight this hard for something that should be automatic and just,” he said in a subsequent media release.

Read more: How Home Affairs rendered me stateless and non-existent through a software malfunction

Responding to Daily Maverick’s inquiry into why it took the department four months to comply with the court order, Thulani Mavuso, spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs and Deputy Director-General of Operations, said:

“Registration of the birth of the applicant was concluded after the period stipulated by the court because of legal consultations the Department had to undertake in light of the lack of documentation required for foreign births, as per Regulations on the South African Citizenship Act, 1995, as amended. Before the court judgment, the applicant had submitted an application for foreign birth without the required full birth certificate, verified by the country of origin (Zimbabwe).” 

Statelessness remains a prevalent and under-recognised problem in South Africa. There is no dedicated mechanism for identifying statelessness and no official statistics for statelessness exist. It has been estimated that at least 10,000 people in South Africa are stateless.

Thandeka Chauke, a statelessness expert for Catalyst for Change, said that women were disproportionately affected, which resulted in intergenerational cycles of legal invisibility.

“In Primrose’s family, four generations have been impacted. It’s a stark reminder of how bureaucratic inertia can hollow out the promise of constitutional rights. That she received her first identity document only at the age of 36, and only after relentless advocacy, a parliamentary briefing and a court order, is unconscionable,” Chauke said

“As we mark Women’s Month and reflect on the legacy of the march against apartheid pass laws, we are reminded that documentation is not just about legal formality; it is a gateway to dignity and belonging

“South Africa’s legal framework is strong, and the Department of Home Affairs has shown its willingness to act in complex cases. Continued investment in training, sensitisation and implementation can help ensure that many others in similar situations are assisted more swiftly and compassionately,” she said. DM