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Phony marriages surprise S. African 'wives'

The New York Times


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - In the last three years, South Africa's Department of Home Affairs has acknowledged that 3,387 bewildered brides have complained that their recorded �I dos� were really �I never dids.�

More than 2,000 marriages have been annulled. Another 1,000 or so are under review.

The department itself is also under review. As investigators have discovered, marrying a South African woman without her knowledge has been as simple as paying a bribe, averaging about $750, to one of many willing home affairs officials.

The certificates are valuable because a foreigner who weds a South African is automatically entitled to permanent residence and a work permit, without which the foreigner could be deported. As the most advanced and prosperous nation in the region, South Africa is a magnet for immigrants seeking a new life - and criminals seeking new identities.

That will not be so easy from now on. A law Parliament adopted on Aug. 19 will require foreigners who marry South Africans to wait five years before applying for anything but temporary residence and work permits.

Meanwhile, though, the number of irate brides is multiplying. In addition to the more than 3,000 cases suspected or proved, another 779 fake marriages have come to light in the past month alone as a result of a public campaign by the department asking all South African women who are single to verify their marital status.

�We know of people who have gone to the office to get married, and on the day of their marriage found out they were married to somebody else,� said Leslie Mashokwe, a spokesman for the department. �Or they have lost their


ID, and the new one comes back with a different surname.�

�Can you imagine? You suddenly discover you are no more Miss X, you are now Mrs. Whatever.�
Not good for the department either. But then, the department is used to it. Its own director general has said corruption is endemic to the department. Its new minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, has vowed to root it out.

�We have been arresting officials who have been involved in this scam left, right and center,� Mashokwe said.

In June and July, 39 officials were arrested in the Free State Province alone, he said. Another official was discovered to have single-handedly registered 500 false marriages in neighboring Mpumalanga.

The husbands came from all over: Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, China, India, Bangladesh and Brazil. In early August, investigators stumbled upon an apparent middleman.

The brides are not always so unknowing. In at least 245 cases, Mashokwe said, investigators determined that the women were probably complicit in the scheme.

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