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Neighbors in need: Zimbabweans seeking refuge in South Africa
Human Rights Watch
June 15, 2008

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/southafrica0608/

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Summary
Since 2005 an estimated one to 1.5 million Zimbabweans have fled across the border into South Africa, the region's economic power. They have run from persecution, for the majority in the form of targeted, mass, forced evictions destroying homes and livelihoods, and from economic destitution as the Zimbabwean economy collapses.

Recent refugees fleeing the brutal crackdown on political opponents of President Robert Mugabe in the aftermath of the March 2008 Zimbabwean elections are the latest wave.

In South Africa they face a vulnerable and uncertain situation. Without documents, they have no right to work and have limited rights and access to social assistance such as health care and housing. Liable to arrest and deportation at any time, they live in permanent insecurity. Due to South Africa's dysfunctional asylum system and unlawful deportation practices, many of the tens of thousands that have applied for asylum are at constant risk of being refouled—unlawfully returned.

These are not voluntary economic migrants, even if for many economic destitution is one of multiple reasons for crossing into South Africa. Their presence in South Africa underlines a failure of foreign policy—the failure to use South Africa's leverage effectively to address the brutal human rights violations and failed economic policies in Zimbabwe causing their flight. Their undocumented status and vulnerability in South Africa, and the increasing public resentment against them, represents a failure of domestic policy—the failure to develop and implement a legal, comprehensive, and workable policy to address the reality of the existence of Zimbabweans in South Africa.

The choice the South African government faces is difficult and stark. Either it continues to breach its fundamental obligations under international law and ignores the reality of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Zimbabweans on its territory. To do this means allowing many to be mistreated by police, abused and exploited by employers, while many others are removed haphazardly, arbitrarily, expensively, and ineffectively to Zimbabwe (most returning back over the border within days or weeks).

Or the government can choose to regularize their stay.

This report calls on the South African authorities to adopt a broad-based policy aimed at regularizing the presence of Zimbabweans in South Africa. This should allow Zimbabweans to enter South Africa legally, should regularize their status once in country, should end their deportation, and should give them the right to work in South Africa on a temporary and reviewable basis. Under the 2002 Immigration Act, the minister of home affairs could establish a new temporary permit scheme called "temporary immigration exemption status for Zimbabweans" (TIES).

The fact of public resentment against foreigners should not deter the South African government from fulfilling its legal obligations and doing what is right. This report outlines eight arguments why regularizing the status of Zimbabweans makes both legal and practical sense:

• Regularization would allow South Africa to meet its fundamental international legal obligation not to unlawfully deport Zimbabwean asylum seekers.
• Regularization would unburden the asylum system of unnecessary claims.
• Regularization would protect Zimbabweans during entry and stay in South Africa, including against xenophobic violence at the hands of South African citizens.
• Regularization would offset the cost to the South African taxpayer of ineffective deportation and wasteful use of police resources.
• Regularization would provide data on hundreds of thousands of currently undocumented Zimbabweans.
• Regularization would help the authorities to enforce employers' minimum wage obligations and create a level playing field on which South African nationals could compete fairly for jobs.
• Regularization leading to the right to work would address Zimbabweans' humanitarian needs in South Africa, which would reduce the pressure on South African social assistance programs.
• Regularization leading to the right to work would help Zimbabweans support desperate families remaining in Zimbabwe, thereby possibly reducing the number of Zimbabweans fleeing their country for South Africa.

The fact of the matter, as this report shows, is that repression in Zimbabwe has a direct impact on South Africa. As resentment among the urban poor against foreigners has grown—with Zimbabweans becoming a prime target of xenophobic violence which has killed dozens, injured hundreds and displaced tens of thousands of foreigners—this includes impact on South African social harmony, public safety, and the rule of law.

Accordingly, the South African government, working closely with the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the United Nations (UN), also has every reason to urgently identify a fundamentally more effective political strategy than has been seen over recent months to address respect for human rights and the rule of law in Zimbabwe itself. This is not an alternative to regularizing the status of Zimbabweans in South Africa—the legacy of repression in Zimbabwe, including Zimbabweans fleeing to South Africa, will take time to overcome, even if measures to address it are implemented immediately and effectively.

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