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Date: 03/08/2004
Source: Ministry of Home Affairs
Title: N Mapisa-Nqakula: Launch of Women's Month Check Your Status Campaign


ADDRESS BY HON NN MAPISA NQAKULA, SOUTH AFRICA'S MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS, ON THE OCCASION OF THE LAUNCH OF THE WOMEN'S MONTH CHECK YOUR STATUS CAMPAIGN, KwaMhlanga Community Hall, KwaMhlanga, 3 August 2004

Programme Director,
Community Leaders
Friends

I am happy that finally I have been able to undertake my first official visit to the province of Mpumalanga in my capacity as a Minister in the South African government. For a while now I have always known that it will be impossible to postpone this eventuality forever. So when an opportunity presented itself this week, we thought we will take it with both hands and come and share with the people of this beautiful Province some of the work we are engaged with as Government.

Sunday, 1 August officially marked the first day of the Women's Month as declared by our Government as part of our programme for the celebration of 10 years of freedom. We had decided at the level of Government to make sure that not only should the celebrations for women's month this be the biggest, but also that every Department that is involved, should roll out programmes that have a meaningful impact in the lives of women in our country.

For us at Home Affairs there was never any doubt that the problem that we would want to tackle head on during this month and beyond, is the issue of fraudulent marriages to which many women I our country have fell victim. It is our view that government needed to take a more active role in identifying and assisting the victims most of whom have been failed by the weaknesses in our own system. As a Department and as broadly as Government we have become increasingly worried by reports emanating from this region and elsewhere in the country regarding the spate of fraudulent marriages and what you may choose to call marriages of convenience.

Let me share a disturbing report with you as it was given to us by our immigration officers and the police yesterday. We are informed that a Pakistan national arrived at our Johannesburg International Airport and deliberately left his luggage inside a plane operated by the Kenya Airline. He then decided that he will only claim the bag from the airline as lost baggage to avoid carrying his bag through customs as is required. Upon checking the baggage, the Airline staff found this man carrying at least 38 Pakistan passports in the luggage, information which they then passed to our immigration officials and the police. The police then followed this man once he had claimed his luggage at Airport. He then went straight to two of our Offices of Home Affairs in Johannesburg and collected a number of permit stickers that are normally given to foreigners who are married to South Africans. These stickers were supposed to be used with the 38 passports that were in the luggage of these Pakistan nationals and South African women would have been married to these people, probably without their knowledge.

I am sharing with you this particular case that we are still dealing with to demonstrate the first problem that we have in our responsibility to register marriages of citizens. The officials concerned have since been arrested and the investigations will continue. What we are in fact dealing with in this first category of cases is pure criminal activities that have a great bearing on the security of our country. It might be that some of this corruption is as a result of activities by our own officials who extract records of citizens and decide to marry some of the people without their knowledge. As in the case that I have just told about, we have intensified our drive to bring these corrupt officials to book.

However, it might be that some of these cases involve our own citizens, women who get offered money to break the law by entering into a marriage of convenience, thereby allowing foreign criminals that status and right to enter our country illegally. As we have said, Government regards the problem of poverty in our country as its foremost priority in its programme. The matter of creating jobs for millions of our people who have been left out of active participation in the economy is the most central feature of government objectives. If this is taking time, the truth is that it is because many more people need to be covered. It is therefore not acceptable that because we do not have a job, we should therefore go and commit crime in order to get a few bucks. The consequences of such actions will be more serious as they involve jail terms and eradicate any possibility of ever improving your life for the better.

However if you had found yourself to be a victim of a fraudulent marriage without your knowledge the Department is prepared to assist you to expunge such a marriage without any cost to you. All you need is to take advantage of the campaign to go to our offices, check your status and satisfy us that you have never been married. Programme Director, the second category of cases that we are dealing with in this campaign has to do with the registration of customary marriages. As you might know, since the new government came into power in 1994, all marriages are now equally recognised by the law. Most of our people who get married in our rural areas in the customary manner do not have their marriages registered. As a result of this women are the ones who suffer the most once the husband dies, when the estate has to be decided. We are urging all women married under customary unions to also take this opportunity to make sure that they are also registered.

Women who are also married through civil marriages and weddings also need to make sure that the people who marry them have registered their marriage. I have also taken a decision to check my own status here today and I am urging all of you who are here to do the same. This is to avoid a situation where you sit at home thinking that your marriage is registered because the priest married you in church only to learn later that there is no such record in our system. I must also indicate that some of our women have gone to check their marriage status only to find out their husbands are married to two other women without their knowledge.

As far as marriage officers are concerned, even if the priest in your church is going to marry you, please make sure that he or she is as registered marriage officer or that they have an arrangement with such an officer to register your marriage. We need all of you who are here today, including the media, to assist us to mobilise the rest of communities behind the campaign. Please inform that the Department of Home Affairs has opened dedicated counters in all our offices to assist women to check their status during the month of August and where there are problems assistance will be provided at no cost to the victims.

We have already made arrangements with the department of Justice where we are able to deregister or expunge a marriage without the long process of having to go to court as long as the people concerned satisfy the requirements set out in the Department. Before I take my seat I need to raise an issue regarding the forced marriage of young girls who are removed from school sometimes at the young age of 10. Again people have raised the fact they need the money generated from lobola. As this government, we cannot be insensitive to poverty and the need for people to get ways of making a living, but sacrificing the soul of our children and selling their future cannot be condoned either. As minister of Home Affairs I am allowed to come to the rescue of children in their interest should they be forced into a marriage. I am therefore urging parents and teachers to teach young women about their rights in this regard. I am sure that in this day and age, within the democratic society we are building, we cannot afford to stop young women from going to school and condemn them to be married at a young age. Their place should be in the education system where we teach them that they are as good as leaders just like boys to lead our country.

As part of kick starting this campaign, I myself will now move over to the desks there and check my own marital status. I ask you to follow suit and do the same.

Thank you

Issued by: Ministry of Home Affairs
3 August 2004
Source: Department of Home Affairs (http://www.home-affairs.gov.za

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