OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 1.30pm.
THOUSANDS of people from across Africa are streaming to South Africa seeking refugee status, most of them under false pretences, Home Affairs Deputy Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said in Parliament on Thursday.
Speaking during debate on a new Refugees Bill that will bring the country’s laws dealing with refugees into line with United Nations standards, Sisulu said Africa is the biggest producer of refugees, thanks to decades of colonialism, neo-colonialism and exploitation. Almost 7-million of a total world refugee population of 15-million are in Africa, which also contains seven of the 10 largest refugee producing countries in the world — among them Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Eritrea.
“It is self evident that large numbers of individuals from neighbouring states and further afield require the protection of South Africa” against being turned back, Sisulu said. While South Africa will honour its obligations, she said, it is aware there is “gross abuse of the system by large numbers of Africans who seek refugee status and who simply have no basis in law to claim the protection of South Africa.”
Since the new democratic government came to power in 1994, South Africa has received 47612 applications for refugee status, of which only 7927 were recognised as genuine. “We have had applications from 107 nations, but refugees are only recognised from nine countries of origin,” Sisulu said. South Africa has a current backlog of 20654 cases, she added.
Sisulu said the Refugees Bill seeks to “balance the protection of legitimate needs of bona fide refugees, while at the same time expeditiously dealing with a wide range of abuse of the system.” The bill proposes the establishment of special refugee reception offices, with qualified staff who will interview asylum seekers before deciding whether to grant refugee status. The bill, approved by the National Assembly on Friday, defines a refugee as anyone unable to return to his or her country “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted by reason of his or her race, tribe, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group”, or one displaced by turmoil in that country. — AFP
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