Johannesburg – More than 170 women have filled out a form in the past week indicating the Department of Home Affairs had changed their surnames against their will after they got married.
A petition was set up after journalist Sarah Emily Wild took to social media when she found out during the municipal elections her surname had been changed to her husband’s.
Wild, along with the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), set up a questionnaire for women in the same position.
They hope to take the matter to the Equality Court.
Marriage registration forms allow women three options: keeping their own surname, taking their husband’s surname, or creating a double-barrelled surname.
Wild said she was angry that her choice – to keep her own name – had been ignored.
She was convinced Home Affairs officials were deliberately changing women’s names.
“The reason I’m having this fight is because they changed my name against my will. I gave Home Affairs an instruction and they chose to ignore it,” Wild said.
She said despite Home Affairs spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete telling a radio station the department would contact her to resolve the issue, she was still waiting to hear from them.
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EuRA Conference Cape Town – 23rd to 25th November 2016
Cape Town should be considered a place of pilgrimage, the Mecca or Jerusalem of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s a place everyone should visit at least once in their life
Is Kenya’s crackdown on NGOs about fair wages, or silencing government critics?
The fallout continues over a move by Kenya’s Nongovernmental Board to address the wage disparity between local and foreign workers, with some suggesting that the motives have more to do with silencing government critics than wage fairness. But the issue of wages has taken hold with locals, creating a complex situation.
In June the NGO Board, a government institution that is responsible for regulating the NGO sector in Kenya, accused NGOs of hiring expats over locals, and of paying them salaries up to four times higher than those paid to their local counterparts. The Board, headed by Fazul Mahammed, has threatened to revoke the licenses of NGOs who do not reduce the wage disparity between local and foreign employees and who do not hire and train more local staff.
One group speaking out against the decision, the Civil Society Reference Group, an umbrella network of more than 150 local, national and international nongovernmental groups, issued a statement saying that “Kenya is likely to lose a huge chunk of the over Kshs 400 billion that NGOs bring into the economy annually if the poorly thought out, ill-advised and misguided circular issued by the NGO Coordination Bureau on employment of expatriates working with NGOs in Kenya is implemented.”
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Home Affairs officials must ask spouses about name change
JOHANNESBURG – Home Affairs will soon make it compulsory for marriage officers to ask married women whether or not they want a surname change.
The department was recently challenged after a married woman had her maiden name changed without her consent.
The law gives married women three options: Keeping their maiden name, opting for a double-barrel surname or taking their husband’s surname.
But one woman only discovered her name had been change when she went to register for the recent local government elections.
“I was ushered into the same queue as my husband. His surname begins with a D and mines with a W,” said Sarah Wild.
“When I went to the woman to tick me off on the voter’s roll, she had the wrong name and it didn’t match my ID.
Source
‘Home Affairs changed my name against my will’
Johannesburg – More than 170 women have filled out a form in the past week indicating the Department of Home Affairs had changed their surnames against their will after they got married.
A petition was set up after journalist Sarah Emily Wild took to social media when she found out during the municipal elections her surname had been changed to her husband’s.
Wild, along with the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), set up a questionnaire for women in the same position.
They hope to take the matter to the Equality Court.
Marriage registration forms allow women three options: keeping their own surname, taking their husband’s surname, or creating a double-barrelled surname.
She was convinced Home Affairs officials were deliberately changing women’s names.
“The reason I’m having this fight is because they changed my name against my will. I gave Home Affairs an instruction and they chose to ignore it,” Wild said.
She said despite Home Affairs spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete telling a radio station the department would contact her to resolve the issue, she was still waiting to hear from them.
Source