Durban - A Durban attorney is questioning how a KwaZulu-Natal mother of two apparently went on holiday to the US with her two children without the consent of their fathers – both his clients – as is now required by law.
The Department of Home Affairs says it will now investigate the matter, which left the fathers “dumbfounded” after they saw pictures posted on social media of their children travelling on a plane and then posing at a tourist attraction in the US.
Attorney Roger Knowles, who acts for both fathers, said his clients lived overseas and were now remarried with other children.
One was previously married to the mother of his son, now 11 years old. The other never married the mother of his daughter, now 8, but qualifies in terms of South African law for full parental responsibilities and rights.
“In both cases, the children have the surnames of their fathers and their fathers are named on their birth certificates. Although both have been paying maintenance, neither is permitted by the mother of the children to have normal contact with them. Both have launched proceedings in terms of the Hague Convention against Child Abduction to obtain high court orders for contact. Documents are soon to be served on the mother,” he said.
Knowles said in December that his clients both received a copy of a photograph posted on Facebook by a person not known to them, showing the mother and the two children on board an aircraft apparently bound for the US. A couple of weeks later, the second photograph was sent showing the mother and children at a tourist attraction in the US.
“Neither knew that their children were going overseas and neither had given consent as is required in terms of the Children’s Act and, indeed, the regulations which have caused such a furore with travel agents and people who travel in and out of South Africa with children.”
Knowles was referring to the new Home Affairs regulations introduced in June last year which dictate that a child must travel with an unabridged birth certificate bearing both parents’ names and with a consenting affidavit from any non-travelling parent.
Knowles also said that parental consent was required for visas for children. “One has to ask how safe are South African children if it is this easy for a mother to leave the country with two children, neither of whom even has the same surname as she does,” he said.
Contacted for comment, Home Affairs requested further details in order to investigate.
The Mercury has reported on several matters in which parents have been forced to turn to high courts in order to comply with the regulations. Last year, a father of a 3-year-old boy obtained an urgent order compelling the child’s mother to give him her written consent to take the child on a 10-day holiday.
In another matter, a Hillcrest attorney sought an order against the director-general of Home Affairs directing that he issue her 14-year-old daughter’s unabridged birth certificate that she had applied for four years previously and without which she could not travel.
A “public interest” test case aimed at scrapping the regulation in its entirety is pending before the Durban High Court. The matter was brought by a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal who obtained an interim order allowing her children to travel in and out of South Africa without the written consent of their father, who has virtually no contact with the children.
However, the minister of Home Affairs is opposing a broader order.
The Mercury