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Desperate
lives, twilight worlds: How a million Zimbabweans live without official
sanction or sanctuary in South Africa
Solidarity Peace Trust
March 31, 2010
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The largest
mass movement of the people into South Africa in its history is
continuing into its seventh year, yet the Government appears to
have a policy that consists mainly of window dressing and broken
promises. The Zimbabwean migration is around three times greater
than that of Mozambique during their civil war, yet astonishingly
there is no coherent indication from the government on how it intends
to deal with this, either now or in the future. The crisis in Zimbabwe;
as economic recovery in Zimbabwe is not likely to occur soon, its
biggest export will remain its people. Bearing this in mind, there
is an urgent need for the Southern African government to develop
a more sensible policy towards the hundreds of thousands of undocumented
Zimbabweans within its borders. There needs to be a move away from
border control to border management, and the promise (apparently
forgotten) to give special dispensation to Zimbabweans under Immigration
Act needs to be renewed and acted upon.
The desperate
plight of thousands, caught in a twilight world of poverty and unbelonging,
involves Zimbabwean migrants of all walks of life and of all ages.
Two case studies in this report highlight two small groups, one
reviews 82 unoccupied minors, and one views 456 Zimbabweans displaced
in November 2009 in De Doorns in the Western cape. This latter group,
part of around 2 400 in De Doorns, had their shacks destroyed during
clearly orchestrated and premeditated xenophobic attacks: four months
later they remain, more or less forgotten, on a playing field.
The horrific
xenophobic attacks of 2008 have caused much soul searching in South
Africa and have further highlighted the dangers faced by migrants
as they flee their African nations in search of safety from prosecution,
humanitarian support and a source of livelihood. However xenophobia
predated the 2008 attacks, with cases of official record dating
back to the very birth of the new South Africa in 1994. And tragically,
xenophobic incidents and their consequences continue into present.
It seems little has been learnt in South Africa since May 2008 in
terms of how to prevent xenophobic violence and in hoe to respond
once it happens. Once more, in De Doorns there has been impunity
for perpetrators and not much support for victims. Clear indications
of a looming xenophobic attack were ignored.
An assessment
of the situation of and policy towards Zimbabweans in South Africa
seems timely for the following reasons:
- Calls are
currently prevalent for another election in Zimbabwe in 2011,
and in this eventuality, there is high likelihood of political
violence and further movements of Zimbabweans into neighbouring
states.
- The imminence
of the World Football Cup, and concerns about a new upsurge in
xenophobia in the aftermath of this, provide further impetus to
this report.
- South Africa
local government elections, due 2011, could precipitate another
round of xenophobia, as local political interests have been shown
to be used to fuel xenophobia in informal settlements.
While South
African government has a very clear constitutional duty to respond
to the crisis and provide protection to all who live within the
borders of their nation, there is also a need for the Zimbabwean
government to deal more cohesively with the fact that so many of
its citizens are in exile, ranging from highly talented and competent,
to the sadly vulnerable, ill and week. The patchy attempts by the
Zimbabwe coalition government to engage with and develop a policy
for the Diaspora leave much to be desired. While this may be partly
a matter of money and partly a matter of being over stretched at
home, there needs to be a comprehensive move to make it worth while
for people to return, and also a clear attempt to engage those in
the diaspora in processes such as national healing and devising
a new constitution. People will not come home as long as there are
no jobs for them, as long as they do not feel safe from political
violence. There are no easy solutions for these problems, but apart
from a conference in the Cape in December 2009 that engaged a very
elite group of the diaspora only, and a few inappropriate calls
from senior MDC officials simply appealing to the diaspora to come
back, there is little systematic attempt to deal with the diaspora.
The Constitution Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) announced recently
that there should be no diaspora outreach during the constitutional
process, owing to no funds being available, but in our experience
there is a very keen interest to be involved, among Zimbabweans
in South Africa at least. Civics in either South Africa or Zimbabwe
could play a role in ensuring that at least some of the diaspora
are kept involved and are encouraged to make submissions in writing,
to reduce the sense of alienation felt by so many.
The reasons
for Zimbabweans leaving in their thousands will be taken as understood
in this report, Zimbabwe has suffered a highly publicized and dramatic
plunge in the last decade with: wide spread political violence;
repression; mass displacements of urban dwellers and farm workers
as a result of deliberate urban demolitions and farm inversions;
collapse of food production resulting, at times, in half of the
population needing WFP food to survive; closure of schools and hospitals
in 2008; the biggest cholera outbreak epidemic in Africa in 15 years
affecting 100 000 people; hyperinflation estimated at 87 septillion
percent at its peak. While the situation is now more stable, formal
employment remains almost impossible to find, and living wages among
the employed are also rare. For now, hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans
will continue to make the long journey southward in the increasingly
vain hope of a better life. The job market in South Africa is showing
signs of being oversubscribed; with 40% unemployed locally, and
the boost to the labour market given by construction linked to the
WFC about to come to an end. This situation is likely to worsen.
Since 2004,
some progress has been made both in terms of the South African authorities'
official recognition of the mass migration of Zimbabweans into South
Africa, and in the growth of non-governmental responses to the crisis.
However, in both cases, responses remain too insignificant to deal
with the scale of the migration. Official documentation channels
remain ad hoc and inappropriate to deal with the scale of arrivals.
Need for services
by Zimbabwean migrants continues to outstrip the capacity of either
government or NGOs to respond, and the abuse or denial of fundamental
rights is prevalent as a result. Zimbabwean migrants, and migrants
generally, fall outside of core South African government policies
in terms of service delivery, but then so do millions of South Africa's
poorest citizens, and the lack of access to support that migrants
experience is no different to the marginalisation of many South
Africa's own destitutes.
Across South
Africa, some Zimbabweans and other migrants continue to report lack
of access to health and education, and lack of understanding among
prospective employers of their rights to work. It has become easier
for Zimbabweans with passports to enter South Africa, with the introduction
in may 2009 of a 90 day visa issue free at entry. This was not a
special dispensation, and simply belatedly brought Zimbabwe in line
with other neighboring countries who have had free visa entry to
South Africa for some time. However, most Zimbabweans do not have
passports and continue to face violence and extortion during illegal
border crossings, and all the difficulties of being undocumented
once in the country. In spite of the moratorium on deportations,
a few Zimbabweans are still being deported.
The phenomenon
of unaccompanied minors from Zimbabwe has gained wide press attention
in the last six months, as increasing numbers of youngsters make
remarkable and treacherous journeys in search of better life. This
report provides a profile of some of the children who were staying
in Johannesburg in 2009, and their harrowing experiences both en
route and in South Africa.
The current
report examines events around the Central Mothodist Mission (CMM)
in Johannesburg, which has attacted huge media attention in the
last two years. Paul Verryn, the resident priest at the CMM, has
courted controversy with his truly open door policy, in which no
one is turned away. The CMM has taken in an estimated 20000 individuals
over the last seven years, mostly Zimbabweans, and seldom has fewer
than 1500 migrants under its roof, and times as many as 4000. The
CMM has been subjected to raids, insults and accusations. The EMM
is the highly visible tip of a huge iceburg of Zimbabweans in central
Johannesburg, and we visited some other sites its vicinity to compare
how Zimbabweans live around the corner. The CMM is disliked by many
officials as it is situated right next door to the High Court building
and the unpleasantness, the untidiness of South Africa's (lack
of) dispoara policy is rubbed in the faces of High Court judges
and other officials every day. By providing basic shelter, food
to the most vulnerable, and schooling to the children, Verryn has
succeeded in doing for migrants on a small scale what the government
has failed to do on any scale at all. Conditions in the church are
tough, and criminal acts occur there from time to time, inevitable
with an open door policy. But closing down the church as a place
of accommodation will not mean that the thousands passing through
there melt into thin air, they will continue to exist in increasingly
desperate and increasingly invisible spaces.
Migrants are
messy; their awkward twilight world stands in the way of the Johannesburg
city plan to regenerate the inner city, a plan which precede the
World Football Cup, and will continue afterwards. Clampdowns, which
have intensified in the city of the CMM, will therefore not end
with July 2010, but will continue, with evictions, harassment and
arrests, into the indefinite future. State dealings with the CMM
and with Zimbabwean migrants generally, are inconsistent. On the
other hand the state has shown willingness to be humane, by planning
to open a halfway house for migrants in the city, which a year after
initially being promised has not yet quite materialized, and on
the other hand, Zimbabweans are regularly arrested for "loitering",
even while standing in a clinic queue awaiting medical treatment.
Even when this halfway house opens, which it should shortly, it
is a mere window dressing in terms of addressing the scale of the
problem; it will house up to 500 people at a time, for up to six
months.
The international
debate on how to deal with different categories of migrants continues,
and proposals to recognize mixed reasons for migrating and to provide
more formal recognition for so called "economic" or
"humanitarian" migrants is being discussed at the United
Nations level, but these debates remain embryonic. Some commentators
have argued that Zimbabweans should be refereed to as "forced
humanitarian migrants", to distinguish them from voluntary
economic migrants, and have argued that they should have rights
similar to those of political refugees. It will be years yet before
there are changes to international refugee instruments/ or national
statutes and policies that will translate into greater safety and
access to services for hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants
in South Africa and elsewhere across the world. These are mostly
desperately poor people, who are forced to be on the move for a
variety of reasons, including political persecution and humanitarian
disasters. They face great risks and exploitation. It is also true
that migrants are often recognised as being more inclined to work
hard, and are often better skilled, whether through education or
experience, than the poorest people in their home host nations.
South Africa owes its current wealth partly to migrant labour over
many decades.
Most Zimbabweans
in South Africa lead desperate lives. Even though documentation
is now easier, it is ad hoc and inappropriate and a partial, temporary
solution. Where to live in a perpetual challenge, as is misery of
having to move from one place to another, in fear of eviction, chasing
seasonal employment, in the face of xenophobia, which is often life
and livelihood threatening.
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