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SOUTH AFRICA / STATELESS MOTHER
STORY: SOUTH AFRICA / STATELESS MOTHER
TRT: 05:47
SOURCE: UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNHCR ON SCREEN
LANGUAGES: TSHWANA / NATS
DATELINE: 04 NOVEMBER 2020, BRITS, NORTH WEST PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA
1. Med shot, Mpho Modise, a stateless person, seated on chair
2. Wide shot, Mpho with daughter
3. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“It is as if I have died whilst I’m still alive. I cannot sleep at night. I am always thinking about my life. I wonder where I will end up with my status.”
4. Wide shot, Mpho mopping floor at home
5. Med shot, Mpho mopping floor at home
6. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“My life is difficult. I was abandoned by a person I think was my mother when I was five years old.”
7. Various shots, Mpho cooking
8. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“They called me a foreigner and beat me.”
9. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“I have never been to school.”
10. Various shots, Mpho walking son to school
11. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“I used to ask myself why I do not have papers like other children, however, I have never been able to get an answer because I don’t know my parents. I do not know a single member of my family who can tell me about my life and who I am.”
12. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“I now have children of my own.”
13. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“If I had an ID, I would have gone to the farms to work for my children.”
14. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“But who will give you work without an ID?”
15. Wide shot, Mpho with children and reverend
16. Med shot, Mpho with kids
17. Various shots, Mpho with children and Reverend Peter Moatshe
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Peter Moatshe, Reverend in Brits:
“Families would stay with Mpho and let Mpho go to somebody just like that until Mpho came to our home. Then, I felt when we spoke with Mpho none of those families endeavored to help Mpho in terms of documents for her own life and for her kids’ lives. I said then, it means that I must go all out to help this young lady so that she becomes a citizen of a particular country.”
19. Wide shot, Reverend’s family with Mpho
20. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“We have taken a lot of steps with the reverend Moatshe, in which he tried to ensure that I get help. We have gone everywhere. There is no avenue that we haven’t tried.
21. Wide shot, Mpho with children on a road
22. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“When I thought of giving away my children, reverend Moatshe told me that there was no way that you could bring children into this world and then give them away. Who are you going to be left with?”
23. Med shot, Mpho’s son on a bed at home
24. Wide shot, Mpho and her four children at home
25. Med shot, Mpho feeding her daughter
26. SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“My wish is to see myself in my own home with my children. Seeing my children grow and going to school. I would like to see them telling me that they have completed their studies.”
27. Med shot, Mpho dressing her daughter
28. Wide shot, Mpho with her children at home
29. Close up, Mpho combing her daughter’s hair MS Mpho seated on a chair with her daughter
Mpho Modise is unsure of her age and does not have birth registration documents to confirm it. She is stateless, meaning she does not have a nationality and with that - no identity papers. Her greatest fear is that the burdens of statelessness will be passed on to her four children, unless she can obtain South African citizenship.
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“It is as if I have died whilst I’m still alive. I cannot sleep at night. I am always thinking about my life. I wonder where I will end up with my status.”
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“My life is difficult. I was abandoned by a person I think was my mother when I was five years old.”
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“They called me a foreigner and beat me.”
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“I have never been to school.”
Modise believes she was around seven when the woman she assumed was her mother abandoned her in Brits, a small town in South Africa’s North West Province in 1994. She was left with nothing and spent most of her life moving from one well-wisher’s home to the next, until her welcome would run out.
Without any legal papers to prove her identity - like a birth certificate, Mpho cannot exercise the rights registration at birth guarantees. As such, she cannot apply for an identity document or be confirmed a South African citizen. Throughout childhood, Mpho watched enviously as other children went to school. She stayed home with the chores, cleaning, making up the beds, doing laundry and cooking. She has never learnt to read or write.
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“I used to ask myself why I do not have papers like other children, however, I have never been able to get an answer because I don’t know my parents. I do not know a single member of my family who can tell me about my life and who I am.”
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“I now have children of my own.”
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“If I had an ID, I would have gone to the farms to work for my children.”
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“But who will give you work without an ID?”
Stateless people have difficulty accessing basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement. Without these things, they can face a lifetime of obstacles and disappointment.
For Mpho, her only recourse is to apply for late registration of birth. But with no known relatives to support her application for late birth registration and without records of school enrolment, the authorities are not convinced she is South African. With help from her church and legal organizations working with UNHCR, Mpho’s case has been presented many times to the authorities, but her fight for nationality continues.
SOUNDBITE (English) Peter Moatshe, Reverend in Brits:
“Families would stay with Mpho and let Mpho go to somebody just like that until Mpho came to our home. Then, I felt when we spoke with Mpho none of those families endeavored to help Mpho in terms of documents for her own life and for her kids’ lives. I said then, it means that I must go all out to help this young lady so that she becomes a citizen of a particular country.”
Her greatest fear is that her four children will face the same struggles of being stateless. As a single mother and only present parent, she is their only hope.
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“We have taken a lot of steps with the reverend Moatshe, in which he tried to ensure that I get help. We have gone everywhere. There is no avenue that we haven’t tried.
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“When I thought of giving away my children, reverend Moatshe told me that there was no way that you could bring children into this world and then give them away. Who are you going to be left with?”
SOUNDBITE (Tshwana) Mpho Modise, Stateless Person:
“My wish is to see myself in my own home with my children. Seeing my children grow and going to school. I would like to see them telling me that they have completed their studies.”
Globally there are more than 10 million without a nationality and millions more at risk of being stateless.
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