A nightmare journey of more than 17 years last week came to an end for a 36-year-old domestic worker who was refused by the Department of Home Affairs to obtain a birth certificate, so that she could ultimately get an ID document.

The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, now ordered the department to issue Primrose Medisane with both a birth certificate and an ID document within 30 days. To show its dismay with the department in the manner it treated Medisane over the years, the court slapped the department with a punitive costs order.

Medisane told the court that the consequences for stateless women are dire. The women in her family have suffered many human rights violations. Medisane, who was a clever learner at school and wanted to become a social worker, could not take her matric exams. Her dream was to become a social worker.

Instead, she had to become a domestic worker. Her mother died of cancer shortly before she, too, managed to eventually obtain her documentation. She was refused treatment at the hospital, and once she managed to obtain the treatment with her new ID document in hand, it was too late for her.

This, in spite of both Medisane and her mother proving via DNA evidence that they were entitled to South African citizenship, as Medisane’s mother and grandmother were South African citizens. Born in Zimbabwe after her mother had married a Zimbabwean, Medisane never obtained a birth certificate. This became her biggest hurdle, as she could not apply for an ID document without it.

She moved at a very early age to South Africa with her parents, where she attended school and loved it. Although she excelled at her studies, she was teased by her teachers. “They used to ask me why I was here, as I know I will not be able to write my matric without an ID document.”

The year before matric, Home Affairs came to the school to assist the learners in obtaining their documentation. But they could not assist Medisane and told her to go to the department’s offices to sort things out. This was the start of her and her mother’s quest to obtain documentation.

Medisane later got married, but she also could not register her children due to her being undocumented. They also refused to allow the father, who is a South African citizen, to apply for their birth certificates. This would mean a third generation of stateless Medisane women. She said her fears for her daughters grew even bigger when they encountered difficulties enrolling in school.

Countless visits to Home Affairs over the years, even after DNA testing proving their South African link, proved fruitless for Medisane and her mother. Lawyers for Human Rights, who also assisted her in her court application, managed to, via the Children’s Court, obtain birth certificates for them. Her mother, after she was already terminally ill, obtained her legal status in 2023 when she at last obtained verification from the Zimbabwean authorities regarding her birth certificate.

But it took Medisane to turn to court, with the help of Lawyers for Human Rights, before she was heard. She was told to return to Zimbabwe to obtain a birth certificate, something she could not do as she had no papers, thus she could not travel. Meanwhile, she said she went through hell and back at the hands of Home Affairs.

She told the court how her grandmother, 80, who accompanied them as she is a South African national, was accused of being here illegally and labelled as a “border jumper.” Medisane said not only was she denied education and healthcare due to her situation, but her human dignity had been undermined.