Title: BRIEFING TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON HOME AFFAIRS: CHILDREN TRAVELLING INTO AND OUT OF SOUTH AFRICA AND CITIZENS RELATED ABILITY TO OBTAIN UNABRIDGED BIRTH CERTIFICATES
1BRIEFING TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON HOME
AFFAIRS CHILDREN TRAVELLING INTO AND OUT OF
SOUTH AFRICA AND CITIZENS RELATED ABILITY TO
OBTAIN UNABRIDGED BIRTH CERTIFICATES
1
2OUTLINE OF THE PRESENTATION
- Background
- INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARK
- Movement Statistics
- Implementation of regulations on unabridged
certificates (UBC) - Accelerating issuance of ubc
- INTERVENTION AND INITIATIVES TO ACCELERATE
ISSUANCE OF UBC - ACTIVITY TO CLEAR BACKLOG
- PROJECTIONS
- PROGRESS ON Registration OF BIRTH REGISTRATION
WITHIN 30 DAYS and late registration of birth - CHALLENGES AND MITIGATIONS
- BENEFITS FOR ACQUIRING UBC
- WAY FORWARD
- Recommendation
31. BACKGROUND
- The Immigration Regulations, 2014 came into
effect on 26 May 2014. - The Regulations introduced a number of changes in
relation to the travelling of minors in and out
of the Republic. - These changes are in line with South Africas
international obligation to curb child
trafficking and also in line with the provisions
of the Childrens Act, 2005 (Act No. 38 of 2005). - It is estimated that 30 000 minors are trafficked
through RSA borders every year and 50 of these
minors are under 14 years. - In order to enable travellers to prepare for the
implementation of the regulation dealing with
minors travelling, its implementation was
postponed to 1 June 2015.
41. BACKGROUND cont.
- As from 1 of June 2015, the immigration
regulations require that parents (married, single
and divorcees) travelling with their children
(minors under 18 years) must, in addition to
their passport, produce an unabridged birth
certificate (UBC) of the child reflecting the
particulars of the parents of the child or any
other document with similar details, when exiting
and entering South African ports of entry. - In terms of the South African Passport and Travel
Documents Act, both parents must provide consent
in as far as the issuance of a travel document is
concerned. - In the case of single parents where the other
parent, at the time of birth registration, did
not acknowledge paternity, such consent would not
be required for the purposes of travelling with a
minor. - Single parents who by virtue of agreement at the
time of birth registration had an acknowledgement
of paternity from the other party, must produce
consent from such party for the purposes of
travelling with a minor.
51. BACKGROUND Cont.
- In the case of divorcees, the parents where
custody of a child/children is shared, must
produce consent from the other parent for the
purposes of travelling with a minor. -
- Where a person is travelling with a child who is
not his or her biological child, he or she must
amongst others, produce - a copy of the unabridged birth certificate of the
child - an affidavit from the parents or legal guardian
of the child confirming that he or she has
permission to travel with the child. - Standard Operating Procedures for the above have
been approved for implementation to ensure
uniformity in all Ports of Entry. - The Department presented these requirements
during the Civil Registration and Vital
Statistics Conference that took place in Cote d
Ivoire in February 2015 and there was no
objection.
62. INTERNATIONAL BENCHMARK
SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH AFRICA
Country Biometric Unabridged Birth Certificate Police Clearance
United Kingdom (UK) Yes It is a mandate document if minor is applying for visa and travelling with guardian or one parent No for short stay
Canada It is required for 40 high risk countries, South Africa is exempted Consent form signed by both parents No for short stay
United States of America (USA) Yes Birth Certificate and Consent form signed by both parents is required No for short stay
Australia Yes Consent form signed by both parents No for short stay
Schengen It is mandatory to enroll for biometric but if any applicant who applied after 6 June 2013, his/her biometric details are stored in the common visa information system (VIS) used by all Schengen countries. This details are valid till 59 months so applicant need not enroll for biometric data if travelling again within 59 months. Unabridged Birth Certificate is required to apply for visa applicant below 18 years No for short stay
73. MOVEMENT STATISTICS OF CHILDREN The following
numbers of movements relating to persons under
the age of 18 years have been recorded on the
Departments Movement Control System
83. MOVEMENT STATISTICS OF CHILDREN cont.
- Statistics have been obtained from the
Departments Enhanced Movement Control System
(EMCS) on the numbers of movements recorded over
the last four (4) calendar years at the ports of
entry (PoE). - The statistics do not include the movements of
minors who travelled through a small number of
POEs where the EMCS has not yet been installed,
namely - Gemsbok
- Bray
- Makgobistad
- Zanzibar
- Mokopong
- Monanatsa Pass
- Boesmansnek
- 8. Saldanha Bay
- 9. Mossel Bay
- 10. Ongeluksnek
- 11. East London harbour
- 12. Durban harbour passenger terminal
- 13. Couga harbour
- 14. Onseepkans
94. IMPLEMENTATION OF REGULATIONS ON UNABRIDGED
BIRTH CERTIFICATE (UBC)
- South African children born from 3 March 2013
onwards and whose births are registered were
issued with UBC on-the-spot. - Therefore, the population of children / minors
that will be required to apply for unabridged
certificates in line with the regulations would
be children born between 1996 and February 2013. - On 1 August 2014 the DHA Ministers Management
Meeting took a decision that Civic Services
should develop a project plan that will improve
citizens ability to obtain UBC in support of the
new Immigration Regulation requirements
(regulation 6(12)(a)(b)(c)) which will be
implemented with effect from 01 June 2015. - The UBC project team was established to address
the population of children / minors born between
1996 and February 2013 that are envisaged to
apply for a UBC, hence already in possession of a
passport.
105. ACCELERATING ISSUANCE OF UBC PREMODIFICATION
PROJECT
- Approximately 17 million children were born
between 1996 and February 2013 - Out of this population, approximately 1.1 million
children have been issued with valid SA passports - Out of the above population, 86 387 children born
in 1996 with passports no longer require UBC due
to the fact that they have turned 18 years of
age. - The UBC Pre-modification project therefore
focused on preparing the UBC for 1 071 145 who
are potential travellers that will be immediately
affected by the implementation of Immigration
Regulations 6(12)(a)(b)(c) whilst the existing
backlog on UBC applications had to be eradicated
116. INTERVENTIONS AND INITIATIVES TO ACCELERATING
/ FAST TRACK ISSUANCE OF UBC - (PROGRESS REPORT
PRE-MODIFICATION)
- In order to accelerate the issuance of UBCs the
following interventions and initiatives were
undertaken through the project - Development and implementation of a
function/application that allows the insertion of
parent particulars prior to them applying for UBC
(Pre-modification Function). - A UBC pre-modification team has been established
and is currently pre- modifying birth records.
Therefore children whose UBC has been
Pre-Modified will receive their UBC on-the-spot
upon application. - The records indexing system was enhanced to
- Validate all data inputs against NPR before
acceptance thereof - ease record locating thereby significantly
reducing the time and resources required to
locate a record - simplified the indexing of new records by
changing it from manual capturing of IDN to
scanning of the barcode on the registration form
which has already been linked to the IDN
126. INTERVENTIONS AND INITIATIVES TO ACCELERATING
/ FAST TRACK ISSUANCE OF UBC - (PROGRESS REPORT
PRE-MODIFICATION) cont.
- An instruction was issued to all front offices to
encourage all parents applying for passports in
respect of children under the age of 18 years to
also apply for the UBC (Passport Control
Instruction) - In order to deal with capacity demands trainees
(cadets) from the Learning Academy were trained
and deployed to assist with UBC project. In
addition officials from the respective provinces
were seconded to the project. (Pre-modification
team) - An analysis was done of all UBC applications
lodged to date and it was revealed that - 26 098 from the 1 071 145 children with passports
have already applied for UBC which has not been
modified yet. These applications were prioritised
and finalised. - amongst these applications there are 9 112
children who are below 18 years of age. These
applications are currently being fast-tracked
with the purpose of having it finalised before 1
June 2015. (Backlog)
136. INTERVENTIONS AND INITIATIVES TO ACCELERATING
/ FAST TRACK ISSUANCE OF UBC - (PROGRESS REPORT
PRE-MODIFICATION) cont.
- The current volume of UBC applications balance
on-hand, i.e applications that are still within
the 6-8 week turnaround time, is 5 674 (18 May
2015). - In order to ensure that the backlog is eradicated
and to avoid the creation of a cumulative
backlog, work streams for both these categories
were established. - Except for instances where records cannot be
located (F170), all new UBC applications are
immediately modified to avoid cumulative backlog - An amount of 10 million rand has been allocated
to digitize records for easy retrieval. This
could expedite modification of records
14Statistics Children in possession of Passports
YEARS of birth (A) NO. OF PASSPORT HOLDERS PY (B) UNABRIDGED CERTIFICATES ON CVT ALREADY PRINTED/COLLECTED AT INCEPTION OF PROJECT (C) APCAPTURED AGAINST CVT (MODIFIED) (BACKLOG) PRE-MODIFIED (D) CLOSING BALANCE AS AT 14 May 2015
Mar-13 4 984 1 448 26 098 389 939 551 739
2012 33 688 1 555 26 098 389 939 551 739
2011 40 723 563 26 098 389 939 551 739
2010 47 755 427 26 098 389 939 551 739
2009 54 291 305 26 098 389 939 551 739
2008 60 912 261 26 098 389 939 551 739
2007 45 377 55 26 098 0 551 739
2006 40 801 42 26 098 0 551 739
2005 59 832 34 26 098 0 551 739
2004 69 578 106 26 098 0 551 739
2003 69 447 79 26 098 0 551 739
2002 70 230 83 26 098 0 551 739
2001 73 186 79 26 098 0 551 739
2000 76 580 63 26 098 0 551 739
1999 76 235 123 26 098 0 551 739
1998 78 566 55 26 098 0 551 739
1997 (May Dec) 69 942 7 26 098 0 551 739
1997 (Jan April) 12631 7 26 098 0 551 739
1996 86 387 26 098 0 551 739
1 071 145 5 288 26 098 389 002
- Total number of Children born between 1996 and
2013/03 with passports 1 071 148 (Project
Population)Total number of children already in
possession of UBCs (CVT) (PRINTED/COLLECTED)
5 288Total number of children
application lodged against CVT (Backlog)
26 098Total number of children born in 1996
with passports no longer requiring UBC due age
18 86 387Total number of children born
in 1997 (Jan - Apr) with passports no longer
requiring UBC due age 18 12
631Pre-modified records (14 May 2015)
389 002 - Total number of children in possession of
passports without UBC 551 739 (Closing
Balance)
Out of the 1 071 145 project population a total
of 519 406 cases concluded
157. ACTIVITY PLAN TO CLEAR BACKLOG
- There are 9112 outstanding UBC applications for
children who are 18 years of age and below, who
have applied for passports (backlog). - The current UBC applications is 5674 which is
within 6 - 8 weeks - Prioritizing of UBC applications for below 18
years. The project team has been set up to clear
the outstanding UBC will be by end of May 2015.
- Matched all UBC applications against available
records in batches - More than 14 000 records already been requested
from records team - Increased modification of records norm from 120
to a minimum of 150 per day - Finalisation of outstanding UBC applications and
be ready for issuance on or before 01 June 2015
168. PROJECTION
OUTSTANDING (as at 14 May 2015) 551 739 Norm
300 pre-modifications per day per official
Officials (Pre-modification) 33Weeks until
implementation 3Projected production for
the month of May 198 000 PROJECTION of
Cases Concluded BY END MAY Production Status as
on 14 May 2015 519 406Projected production
(15 30 May) 99 000Production
Performance against project end May 618
406 Outstanding by end of May (Projection)
452 739 ESTIMATED PROJECT CONCLUSION PHASE 1
(end July 2015)
179. PROGRESS ON BIRTH REGISTRATION
- There has been an increase in the number of
births registered within 30 days since 2010 - An increase in the number of birth registration
is a result of heightened awareness programmes
aimed at encouraging birth registration within 30
days
Subject F year 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15
Midyear birth estimates (Stats SA) 1 18 4867 1 196 395 1 207 711
Birth Registration within 30 days (DHA) 602 530 650 682 704 527
1810. CHALLENGES MITIGATIONS
CHALLENGES MITIGATION
No records/ Missing records Effect F170 (reconstruction of records) an SMS is sent to the client
Non response by client when requested to submit required documents (DHA 24) Reminder / Communication with client
1911. BENEFITS FOR ACQUIRING UBC
- Child protection and security (including
protecting children from child trafficking) - Ability to travel with children across RSA
borders from 01 June 2015 - Access to government socio-economic benefits
(social grants) - UBC is required for elementary school admission,
medical aid schemes and estates - Other countries need UBC for Permanent Residence
and Visa applications, etc
2012. WAY FORWARD
- The new immigration regulations will be
implemented from 1 June 2015. - Every year the number of requests for UBC will
decrease as affected minors reach age of
majority. - A Passport Control Instruction was issued that
parents applying for a passport for their
child/ren must simultaneously apply for a UBC for
their child/ren. - A Hotline will be put in place to address
emergency cases. - An amount of R10 million has been allocated for
the digitisation of records project
21