USING MUM’S SURNAME AGAINST CULTURE – SENATOR

MBABANE – Some senators are against children taking their mothers’ surnames.

This was revealed during the Eswatini Parliament Information Workshop on Statelessness for Senators yesterday. It was held at the Royal Swazi Spa Convention Centre. 

Both ministers of the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and that of Home Affairs attended the event. 

Statelessness is someone who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its laws. 

Senator Vuka ‘Moi Moi’ Masilela was of the view that when a child took his or her mother’s surname, it was unSwati and was not in line with the customs of emaSwati.

“No child can take a mother’s surname. We did not create this but God. This goes back to the beginning when God created Adam and Eve. He issued a directive that they should be fruitful and multiply,” Senator Masilela said. 

“So that is why we as emaSwati respect that when a child is born, he or she belongs to both parents because they have the parents’ blood,” he said.

Tests

Masilela added that even DNA tests would not be taken if the blood only belonged to one person. He requested for the ministries to assist in that regard. 

On the other hand, Senator Alberto Samuels disclosed that he was stateless for a while.

“I was stateless for 21 years so I know what you are talking about, where you cannot even get a passport. I was fortunate enough that in my statelessness, I was able to get a job,” Samuels said. He further thanked government for coming up with a Constitution that protected the rights of people with statelessness because this was a serious issue. He said one could live in the country for 21 years and have no access to a lot of basic things, one of them being attending tertiary. 

He expressed that this in particular, had affected bomshana (when referring to children without fathers), most of whom their fathers were of foreign decent. Samuels said they were left behind in a state of statelessness.   

In her presentation, Zanele Mlambo from the Attorney General’s Office, said the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths Act stipulated that statelessness was a problem that not only affected foreigners but emaSwati as well. She explained that statelessness correlated with discrimination because children who were born in a marriage were registered by both parents while those who were born out of wedlock were registered by their mother. 

Mlambo highlighted that there was discrimination and mothers were not allowed to pass nationality on to their spouses or children. She said there was room for improvement.  

Meanwhile, Minister of Home Affairs Princess Lindiwe said there were many stateless emaSwati without IDs who could not do anything because of this. 

She said the matter needed urgent attention and this could be done when senators collaborated to ensure that statelessness was eliminated.    

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