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CEO, David Frost says Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba’s refusal to
re-look at the new unabridged birth certificate requirement for children
travelling in South Africa, set to come into effect on 1 June 2015, is
going to “cost the country a significant amount of tourist arrivals”.
Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom confirmed in parliament recently that there had been negative growth over the past six months from countries affected by the regulations.
In an earlier report in response to calls for the unabridged birth certificate requirements to be revised, Gigaba said the department of home affairs would not go back on its decision and that “South Africa should never relent in protecting children”
Frost told traveller24 that South Africa is the only country in the world that is using the unabridged birth certificate as a measure to combat child trafficking.
“International best practices suggest a far more sophisticated, multi-agency approach such as Interpol, which uses profiling of perpetrators to counter the scourge of child trafficking,” said Frost.
“The blunt measures to a very real problem are going to have far reaching effects. The minister needs to ask himself why South Africa is the only country in the world to implement these measures, is he suggesting that all other countries are not serious about addressing child trafficking?"
Frost said he failed to understand how the department of home affairs could institute these “draconian rules, without proper consultation of the industry it was affecting”.
“It took us three months to get a meeting setup with Minister Gigaba back in October 2014. At this meeting we were promised that a task team would be convened to look at the implementation of the visa and birth certificate requirements."
“To date there has been nothing. No consultation with any key stakeholders such as the Tourism Business Council of SA, nor SATSA (which represents inbound tourism), or ASATA (responsible for outbound tourism),” said Frost.
“Tourism is responsible for 9% of GDP and creates more than 1.5 million job opportunities. We are anticipating a 20% drop in business after 1 June because of these rules.”
Frost said SATSA was imploring President Zuma to give effect to he own state of the nation address in which he said the government would prioritise a review of the visa regulations to "strike a balance between tourism growth and state security".
“We’re asking government at the 11th hour to consider the heavy-handed effect of these requirements. What message does it send to foreign investors, that our government is willing to legislate without any proper consultation,” said Frost.
Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete told Traveller24 the department is in the process of holding round table discussions with key tourism stakeholders but has yet to confirm who the stakeholders are and if there had been any key outcomes to date.
In response to this Frost said, "We'd love to know who these key tourism stakeholders are, because as the official representatives of the industry we have not been engaged."
Are you being affected by SA's new visa rules for children, we'd like to hear about your travel experiences? Email us at Info@traveller24.com, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
