Khadija Magardie
Various refugee organisations around South Africa used this year’s Africa Refugee Day to slam aspects of new refugee legislation as “irresponsible”.
At gatherings and celebrations countrywide to commemorate June 20 – a day declared by the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity to highlight the plight of the continent’s refugees – refugee community leaders called on the South African government and various NGOs, such as the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), to play a more active role in financially supporting refugees in the country.
The Refugee Act of 1998 forbids refugees from taking any job or working for anyone pending the outcome of their asylum applications.
However, the Act, which came into effect earlier this year, has – in broad terms – been hailed as the first progressive piece of legislation that protect the rights of individuals seeking asylum in South Africa. To its credit, the new law lays down strict regulations governing the time it takes by the Department of Home Affairs to process an application – a procedure that up till recently could take as long as six years.
The new regime governing refugee affairs stipulates that applications for asylum must be fully processed within six months.
However, the new procedures to determine eligibility for asylum forbid applicants from working or studying pending the outcome of their applications – a measure most refugee bodies have called “unreasonable” and “unfair”.
Speaking at Africa Refugee Day celebrations in Durban earlier this week, the chair of the Refugee Committee in KwaZulu-Natal, Joseph Tesfaye, called on the UNHCR in particular to “do something” to ensure that refugees were not “left to suffer” because of the new regulation. He added that the regulation could lead to some desperate refugees resorting to crime in order to survive.
Tesfaye also highlighted community concerns at the already high levels of anti-foreigner sentiment among ordinary South Africans, saying such stringent measures would lead to refugees committing crimes, which in turn would increase hostility of locals towards them. He was particularly critical of what he called the failure of the South African government to support refugees.
“South Africa is the only country on the African continent that does not provide any material assistance to refugees,” he said.
According to UNHCR statistics, approximately 60E000 asylum seekers have been registered in South Africa up to April this year, of which 15E000 have recognised refugee status. As civilians continue to be caught in conflict on the continent, the situation is likely to increase.
South Africa, as a signatory to UN protocol relating to the status of refugees, is obliged to protect their rights, and those of asylum seekers. According to UNHCR guidelines, countries like South Africa must “ensure that refugees benefit from economic and social rights, at least to the same degree as other foreign residents of the country of asylum”. The economic self-sufficiency of refugees and asylum seekers currently dominates all discussions surrounding refugee affairs.
In a statement to commemorate Africa Refugee Day, the UNHCR’s Pretoria branch emphasised the need for South Africa to provide effective protection to refugees, and hailed the new legislation as a step in the right direction. However, it emphasised that the need to help refugees to become economically self-reliant remained a problem.
In response to refugee concerns raised at the Durban celebrations, UNHCR representative Tariq Muftic said that bodies such as the UNHCR, because of their status as NGOs, could not shoulder the responsibility for support entirely. Currently, the UNHCR does not provide material support to refugees per se, but pays for legal counsellors at the various refugee forums around the country who play a valuable role in assisting refugees with status determination problems.
Muftic added that refugees themselves should look towards alternative sources for funding, and should offer financial support if possible to “newcomers” who are applying for asylum.
The UNHCR in Pretoria called on the government at both central and local level to provide “a measure of assistance” to genuine and needy asylum seekers, and said that home affairs, in particular, needed “significant additional resources” to ensure a fair status determination procedure.
The Department of Home Affairs, with various other governmental organisations and NGOs, is looking into the possibility of providing services like shelters to destitute asylum seekers. This would be in sync with the policies of countries both in Africa and abroad that provide shelters and sometimes, living allowances to asylum seekers and refugees.
Such measures, say the UNHCR, would go a long way in alleviating the heavy burden of service delivery that now rests entirely with NGOs.