South Africa is such a popular refugee destination that Home Affairs is swamped,reports Marion Edmunds
THE Department of Home Affairs is swamped with so many applicants for political asylum it is contemplating setting up reception centres around the country to accommodate them while they wait for their cases to be heard.
More than 800 people apply for political asylum in South Africa every month – a number that has been increasing exponentially since South Africa started accepting refugees under United Nations guidelines in 1993. In a good month, the Department of Home Affairs processes only 20 to 30.
The numbers reflect primarily an increase in asylum seekers from elsewhere in Africa – Nigerians fleeing the repression in their country, and Somalians escaping the chaos of theirs. There are growing numbers from the conflict-ridden Great Lakes region. But large numbers also have come here from India – second only to Nigeria in the number of applications pending; from Pakistan, Senegal and Bulgaria.
Of more than 23000 applications in the department files on January 31, nearly half had not yet been processed.
The department acknowledged its problems in coping with the influx of refugees at a conference in Mpumalanga with members of the Green Paper Task Group on Migration and Immigration, and specialists in the field of refugee work.
The task group has spent this week working on a rough draft of a new refugee policy, with the goal of clarifying who should and who should not be granted asylum, and of redesigning the system to accommodate them. It will replace a Bill the department drafted and then put on hold to allow the task group to start from scratch.
While Home Affairs has done as well as can be expected with its limited resources to set up a progressive system that complies with international refugee law, refugee specialists say, its programme is not working. Relief workers are concerned about further strain on the system with refugees expected from the Great Lakes conflict.
Every relief worker has a horror story. A tireless worker with refugees, Sister Joan Pearson of the Sisters of Mercy, told how the Catholic church had taken on a group of some 130 refugees from all over Africa who, after four years of waiting for Home Affairs to process their applications, became angry. They staged a protest last July outside the Union Buildings and were forced to retreat to the Catholic church, which set them up in a camp in Garankuwa where they still live – the majority in tents – waiting for their applications to be processed.
“These are all professionals – engineers, administrators, teachers. And they are particularly worried about their children who, until they are formally granted refugee status, do not have access to schools.”
“We have to provide them with everything because they are not allowed to work, and they feel very unwanted. People have dropped pamphlets off at their homes telling them to go away because they are foreigners,” she said.
Pearson and task group members such as Zanele Mbeki argue that the government, in conjunction with non-governmental organisations, should set up resettlement centres to provide newcomers – such as the 130 who fled from African states -with a base from which to work out their next steps. Currently refugees have to find their own accommodation, usually in the slums.
The Catholic church is already negotiating with the Gauteng provincial government to use the old Johannesburg Hospital as a reception centre where refugees can seek sanctuary in their first few days in South Africa.
But setting up separate refugee settlements could create more problems than it solves – particularly given that the government is unable to provide food, shelter and education for its poorest citizens. Refugee specialists are also concerned that it could inflame the xenophobia already felt by many South Africans.
International refugee expert professor James Hathaway, from the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, urged the task group to balance human rights principles against the practical realities of South Africa in the formulation of laws and policy. He said South Africa ought to promote burden-sharing – where states in a region share the responsibility of accommodating refugees, and this would mean extensive negotiations with Southern African Development Community countries to work out a common approach.
He also warned the task group that it would be drawing up policy at a time when many countries were sealing their borders and hardening their hearts.
South Africa’s reputation as “a paradise in Africa” means it is a favoured destination for Africa’s more than seven million refugees – about one-third of the total world refugee population.
A representative from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Bruno Geddo, described the average refugee in South Africa as a young man, between 20 and 30 years of age with between seven and 12 years of schooling and an urban background. Only 5,4% of recognised refugees are female and 5,6% children.
Geddo said refugees in South Africa survived by hawking, piece work and hand- outs from relief organisations. Most, he said, were interested in setting up their own businesses, and younger people were wanting education.
In South Africa, refugees have freedom to move where they want within the country, a privilege not usually extended to refugees elsewhere, making South Africa an even more attractive destination. Many, once they arrive in South Africa, travel further south, to lodge their applications in Cape Town, saying that the queues are shorter, the people friendlier and the officials less corrupt.
However, all speakers identified as a major problem the xenophobia of South Africans who feel that outsiders – whether refugees or illegal immigrants – are threatening their livelihood.
The chairman of the task group, Idasa’s executive director Wilmot James, told the conference that legislation governing refugees would probably be tabled in Parliament early in 1988, a year before the elections. It is feared that South Africans’ antagonism towards immigrants and refugees will be exploited to get votes. “It’s quite important for this issue of refugees to be depoliticised and this will require political leadership and a great deal of public education,” said James this week.