Why does a father count for more?
Merit Rumema’s blog on the definition of fatherhood reminded me of a recent conversation with a friend.
She and her two teenaged children are South Africa citizens. They live in Zimbabwe with her husband, their father, who is not a South African citizen. She needs to get passports for her children, and for various reasons the embassy here will not process them. Instead, she’s been told to go to Pretoria to have them processed – and she’s been informed that the children’s father must be present. It is not enough even for him to write a letter, or to give her his ID to take with her – he must physically be present when they go to apply for their passports. She explains is as if they fear she might abscond with the children without the father’s permission. This is South Africa – with allegedly the most progressive Constitution in Africa (if not the world) and with a supposed respect for human rights and basic issues like gender equality. Why then is the mother’s presence sufficient “adult authority” to process these children’s passports? Why does the father (who isn’t even South African) count for more than the mother in this instance?