Waiting for a Home Affairs document: seven years and counting

Furaha fled to South Africa in 2006 and applied for refugee status, which was granted the same year. In 2008 she applied for a refugee identity document. But seven years later, she is still waiting, though her brother and sister-in-law who applied at the same time got their documents in 2009.

She says she left her contact details at the Bellville home affairs office but no-one phoned her back. Repeated attempts on her part to follow up were unsuccessful.

She re-applied in January 2014 but without success, though her husband and two others who applied after her have received their identity documents. Last month she went back to the Bellville offices and was told there had been no progress. She says she was told to wait and to re-apply after renewing her refugee status in June.

Home Affairs had not responded to GroundUp’s queries after a week.

Furaha said: “The official at Bellville Home Affairs office is aware of my case and every time I walk in, he blurts out, ‘you again’. I am very frustrated, I desperately need the ID.”

Furaha studied occupational therapy at the University of Western Cape and graduated in 2013. She did community service at Lentegeur Hospital for a year. Until the hospital made an alternative plan, for two months she was not paid because the hospital needed an ID in order to process her payment.

“Every month end was stressful for me, for my supervisor and their superiors as well as they had to come up with an alternative. Other employees would get their salaries on [the 26th of the month] but I would get mine a week or two weeks later. When my contract expired, there were vacancies, but the hospital was reluctant to employ me and I suspect it is because of the ID issue.”

She said without an ID she could not apply for a passport to visit her husband’s family who are refugees in Mozambique and whom she has never met.