Parliament,Saturday, 14 June 2025 – The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs held public hearings yesterday on the Marriage Bill in the North West Province’s Bojanala District Municipality.
The North West is the fifth province to host these public hearings after Gauteng,KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga as part of the committee’s comprehensive national public consultation on the draft Marriage Bill.
The Bill aims to consolidate the different marriage laws which include the Marriage Act, Recognition of Customary Marriages Act and the Civil Union Act, into one inclusive legislation for all types of marriages. It will also implements a judgment of the Constitutional Court to recognise Muslims marriages which have been previously excluded from the current legislation.
Hundreds of residents filled up the Rustenburg Civic Centre to make inputs on the draft legislation. While there was general support for the Bill, the citizens had different views about the age of consent, with some agreeing with the proposed 18 years,while others felt 18 was too young and should be increased to 21years.
The clauses on same sex marriages also continued to be a subject of disagreement,like in the other provinces, receiving strong opposition for mainly cultural and religious reasons.
Those who supported the inclusion of same sex marriages in the law argued that South Africa was not a religious state, and religious laws must not be used to discriminate certain members of society.
In supporting the Bill, the residents also told the committee that they hoped it will help address fake and fraudulent marriages where women found themselves married to foreign nationals without their consent, a common problem allegedly perpetrated by corrupt officials of the Department of Home Affairs.
One of the suggestions that dominated yesterday’s public hearings in Rustenburg and which residents felt must be included in the Marriage Bill, is the practice of“ukungenwa” in Zulu or “sea-ntlo” in Setswana (levirate marriage), where a widow is forced to marry her late husband’s brother.
Many of the citizens who spoke on this proposal told the committee that while this was an old tradition practiced by many cultural groups in South Africa; it undermined the rights of the women. They said this was a form of forced marriage and violated women’s right to choose by imposing a partner without their consent.
There were those who argued for the preservation of this tradition but affording the widow the right to make a choice, others argued against it and told the committee that there should be no place for it in the new legislation.
Other inputs the committee received included the need for women in polygamous marriages to enjoy equal status and have equal share of the estate in the event of the death of the husband.
Some of the young people who participated in the public hearings spoke against the exorbitant amounts charged for lobola (bride price) by the parents of the bride, they said this practice must not be used for profit making but to build relations and families.
Committee Chairperson, Mr Mosa Chabane, thanked members of the community for their inputs.He said the committee has noted the concern expressed by participants over corruption at Home Affairs which involves the selling of documents, and fake marriages. He urged the public to report such activities to the relevant authorities.
“There is an ongoing investigation by a multidisciplinary team into the corruption at the Department of Home Affairs, but we as citizens must also do our part by reporting and exposing these corrupt activities and also act responsibly by,among other things, not accommodating undocumented foreign nationals in our homes,” said the Chairperson.
Today the committee will continue with public hearings in the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality, at the North West Provincial Legislature Auditorium, in Mahikeng, at 10:00.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON HOME AFFAIRS, MR MOSA CHABANE.
For media enquiries or interviews with the committee Chairperson, please contact:
Name:Sakhile Mokoena
Cell:081 705 2130
E-mail:smokoena@parliament.gov.za
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