‘A wise and courageous decision,” the then- vice-president FW de Klerk called it when we met in Amsterdam in 1995. These few encouraging words dispelled all our doubts about moving to South Africa.
In April 1996, with my wife Patricia and son Ludo, we left Holland behind. A friend, who had experience with the processes of South Africa’s home affairs department, advised us against applying for residency immediately. So we entered the country on visitors’ permits, planning to decide later what other type of application to make.
After three months of travelling and “fact-finding” with a second-hand motor home, we settled down in Gordon’s Bay in July 1996, where we made contact with World Vision in Cape Town and got involved with an educare centre in Mitchells Plain. This led us to Steinthal Children’s Home in Tulbagh.
In October 1996 we lodged a written application for permanent residency to the South African embassy in The Hague, Holland, and for our visitors’ permits to be renewed.
Having renewed our visitors’ permits twice, we applied for work permits but to no avail. The application was not rejected — it was simply ignored.
At the end of 1997 we moved to Tulbagh where Patricia started working as a voluntary teacher for Steinthal Children’s Home, while I became a voluntary management consultant for it.
At the home Patricia noticed that Johan, a boy born with foetal alcohol syndrome who had arrived two months previously, seemed “lost” in the environment and without the proper medical attention. At 21 months he looked no older than seven months. We suggested to the managing director that we take him for the holidays and, after that, he stayed with us.
Thembisa, a four-year-old, also started spending the weekends with us and soon became part of the family. We began to foster her too, again without any opposition from the state.
In August 1999 we had a meeting with the head of the Paarl office of home affairs. We initiated this meeting because we knew our “illegal” status had to come to an end. All correspondence with the department in the past three years remained unanswered.
We appealed to obtain residency and work permits without having to go back to Holland. The official who interviewed us promised to speak to the director general to see if we could get work permits without having to return to Holland first.
It would be very traumatic for Johan and Thembisa if we left because they could not exit the country with us as we did not have legal guardianship of them yet.
But, we stood no chance. The law demanded that we be repatriated to Holland and wait for a work permit there. Johan and Thembisa were taken into the care of good friends of ours and we were promised by home affairs that within four to six weeks at most our application would go through the system because it was so “clear cut”.
Despite weekly inquiries by the embassy in The Hague, however, Pretoria remained silent. We later discovered that nobody touched our application. It went from desk to desk, but without being processed in any way.
During that time, our friends received an instruction to put Thembisa back in the home. Johan was able to remain with them.
The news about Thembisa hit us like a bomb and we decided to wait no longer. In November 1999 we returned on visitors’ permits again, just as we had three and a half years earlier.
In February 2000, after inquiries by a journalist, the work permit was approved finally. But the home affairs office in Paarl informed me that I had to collect my permit personally in Holland.
In desperation I wrote a letter to Dr [Mangosuthu] Buthelezi [then the minister] asking to be exempted from this, but I got no response.
At the end of May I was threatened with deportation and so decided to return to Holland. During that time the Tulbagh police arrived at our house saying that they had instructions from home affairs to arrest Patricia for being an illegal alien. Fortunately, the police officer refused to execute the order.
At the end of May, while I was still in Holland, Patricia finally got a call from Buthelezi’s secretary. She said they had received the letter and yes, exemption was granted, I wouldn’t have to travel back to Holland, but I was already there.
When I returned to South Africa at the beginning of June I finally had my work permit which, at that time, also allowed Patricia and Ludo to be in the country legally.
By March 2001 we had legally adopted Thembisa and Johan. In 2001, when my work permit was renewed, we also submitted an application for permanent residency, but the application was ignored. In 2003, when I applied for my work permit to be renewed again, this application was ignored too.
With no legal status at all we had become “illegal aliens” again. This time, however, we were the legal parents of South African citizens, who have the constitutional right to protection and sustenance by their parents.
In May 2005, after all applications lodged with home affairs were ignored, I personally delivered a letter of complaint to the secretary of the minister of home affairs. The secretary signed a copy of the letter as acknowledgement of receipt and assured me I would receive a formal reply shortly.
During the next two weeks I made daily contact with the secretary to remind her about her commitment to reply formally. One day she informed me that the “legal department” had forbidden her to speak to me any longer.
That was the last we heard from them. Since then we have not got any responses from home affairs. We are trying to lead a “normal life” in a quiet suburb of Stellenbosch, where our children attend school.
But we live in a state of limbo, beyond words and outside the law. We have followed the correct official route to be given legal status in this country in the form of work permits and residency, but the system has shut us out.