For all those parents who have booked family trips to South Africa, it will definitely be worthwhile reading up on the new law requiring children to travel with an unabridged birth certificate.
New Immigration Amendment Acts of 2007 and 2011 and the new Immigration Regulation 6 (12)(a) came into effect on 26th May, 2014.
South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs has delayed the implementation of the new law until the end of September 2014, which grants families a grace period to allow children to travel with parents or guardians without an unabridged birth certificate” until 1st October 2014.
The unabridged certificate is a full size birth certificate, which lists who is officially the travelling child’s parents and who has custody over the child.
The new regulations and requirement for an unabridged birth certificate for children travelling with parents will help keep children safe and protect them from trafficking, abduction and kidnapping.