LOUISE FLANAGAN
THE SMALL boy stands in a corner playing with a bundle of brightly coloured plastic blocks on the bench.
His grandmother sits next to him, whispering to him quietly.
Nearby, two small girls squeal with delight at their own private game, running up and down the passage dodging the legs of busy court officials.
They are not his toys; officially she is not his grandmother; and the two girls will soon be in tears.
It’s the waiting room at a children’s court in Gauteng.
The boy is five or six or four years old, depending on who is guessing.
The woman he has called his grandmother has been caring for him for a year since her daughter died; her daughter brought him up when a woman known only by her first name left him with her for a day, then disappeared without a trace. The grandmother has been trying to get the child a birth certificate and, along with that, an official name and legal existence for him.
In May, The Star asked officials at the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Social Development to help. The answer was that the correct procedure was for social workers to investigate the matter and write a report, which would be used to support a birth certificate application to Home Affairs.
But more than three months later, the boy is not only without papers but also without his home. The court papers have removed the surname his adoptive family used for him.
There’s no end in sight.