thijsseh

As long as you don't hold your breath. You might get very uncomfortable.

SAPS 'apprehend' people who perform criminal activities like watching TV without a licence. 'Easy' trumps 'serious' every day when deciding who to go after for these fellows.

johan rebel

" In an effort that seems to be nothing short of a miracle, the department of home affairs has managed to reduce the backlog of 4 000 applications for unabridged birth certificates to only 800."

Source

I believe in miracles about as much as I believe in muthi.

Johan

johan rebel

"several families at OR Thambo who had cleared immigration ... claimed they were not asked to present an unabridged birth certificate. A mother with a child arriving from Zimbabwe was asked for documentation but a Canadian single parent with a daughter told Tourism Update she was neither asked by the airline when she boarded in Canada nor by immigration at OR Thambo.

DHA spokesman, Thabo Mokgola, said the reports were hearsay and the regulations were being enforced across all borders consistently."

Source

Johan

jsnydcsa

I've always figured that no matter where you are in the world border/immigration officers have WIDE discretion as to how they enforce just about every rule. Much like a police officer could probably write two dozen summonses for all sorts of violations in a given traffic stop but don't b/c of the traffic officer's discretion, an immigration officer makes split second judgments (biased or not) on how s/he is going to approach a given person presenting at the border. Yes, this can mean random enforcement patterns and anecdotal stories of lax or uneven enforcement (and of course, claims of corruption, etc). But, it also means officers have discretion to move things along in certain circumstances, conduct follow-up based on reasonable suspicion, etc. (and, yes, unfortunately, sometimes become corrupt).

thijsseh

Considering that this would be the first and only regulation to be administered consistently in the whole of the South African bureaucratic system, this seems extremely unlikely to me.

johan rebel

"The International Air Transport Association (IATA) notes with concern South Africa’s new immigration measures that came into effect today, including requiring adults travelling with children to carry unabridged birth certificates

As the body representing the majority of the world’s scheduled airlines, IATA and its member airlines want to be a part of the solution that helps reduce instances of the terrible crime of child trafficking. But it is in everyone’s interests that the measures used to stop the illegal movement of people, do not have unintended side-effects that cause greater harm than good."

Source

Johan

Fredrik74

So Black people are asked for the certificate and White people not?

Remind me again what the trafficking of children that this rule was meant to stop looked like.

johan rebel

"The Department of Home Affairs says its new regulations, including the requirements for children, “compare favourably with the rest of the world”."

Source

Johan

johan rebel

"A team of Ministers from the economic and security clusters, which includes the Department of Tourism, will be set up to address the new immigration laws that have raised concerns in various sectors. The team will be assembled by Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba.

“The team is expected to discuss and engage with the concerns with the aim of finding ways to address the unintended consequences brought about by the implementation of these regulations,” said acting Cabinet spokesperson, Phumla Williams."

Source

Johan

jsnydcsa

Just in time!

Can't wait to see how the ministers will mess it up.

flatlander

The need for the documents to be recent is particularly insane.
Cape Town Tourism says less than 3 months old.
The implication here is that if you travel regularly to, from or through ZA then you need to keep applying for new birth certificates and possibly affidavits from ex-partners, death certificates of deceased partners, etc, etc. An endless treadmill of bureaucracy just to travel. A huge burden on free movement.

Edit: lost the link the original, and in any case it only applies to the affidavit from a non-travelling parent as mentioned below.

johan rebel

Three months sound eminently prudent and reasonable to me.

After all, any number of children could be born again within a three month period.

Johan

jsnydcsa

I don't think the baseline underlying government issued documents need to be re-issued (e.g. birth cert, death cert of spouse, court order of divorce/custody) it would just be that underlying letters need to be renewed. If you've got an order of divorce and custody from a spouse who's in the wind, then your letter affidavit so stating that you are the sole guardian/parent (attaching the underlying order) would have to be "new" every 3 months. Still a hassle.

PARKERHOUSEREALESTATE

My son, who is Canadian had booked all of the family travel out of Windhoek, Namibia. They have new passports that were issued out of Pretoria just this month without a word about the new travel restriction. They went to Windhoek this morning and were denied boarding for their summer vacation. The entire travel was points and money booked by Air Canada...surely the booking carrier should have known. Anyone have any idea what happens with all this mess?

Steve_ZA

AC should have informed them of the new travel regulations, I would contact them. Depending on where the children were born it could take some time to get the certificates issued too which just goes to show how ridiculous this situation is.