South Africa appears to receive the cream of African refugees seeking safe new homes, in Africa, but their skills and experience go to waste, says a survey released Thursday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
One-third of the 90 000 refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa have some form of tertiary education. Two-thirds have a secondary certificate or equivalent and the same proportion had skilled jobs before coming to South Africa.
The situation changed dramatically once they arrived in South Africa.
While only three percent of refugees were unemployed in the countries they fled, a quarter of those in South Africa are without jobs. Only half of the people seeking refuge in South Africa can afford to send their children to school here.
Refugees have as much right to primary education and emergency medical as South Africans do, but not many know this and do not resist when they are illegally turned away because of lack of funds.
The first comprehensive study of refugees took two years and was conducted with a sample of 1 500 people in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. The refugees came from 12 countries — Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Congo-Brazzaville, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Liberia and Cameroon.
Refugees from other countries, including Zimbabwe, were excluded due to their small numbers, says the survey. “This is the first time we have a schematic overview of the daily lives of refugees in South Africa as they try to exist in safety and dignity after the trauma of being forced to leave their home countries,” said Bemma Donkoh, the UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) Representative.
“With this information we can determine where the real needs are for the South African government and the UNHCR. One of the things we have found is that South Africa is not using the potential these refugees posses. Most of the refugees are well educated and skilled. They can and would like to contribute to the wellbeing of South Africa if only they are afforded the ability to do so,” Donkoh said.
The survey finds that 44% of the refugees in South Africa survive on only one meal a day, with 21% saying they and their families often go without food. The average family income for refugees in South Africa is R650 ($100) a month and only three percent had no income at all. One-fifth of those surveyed say they paid for immigration services that should have been free of charge.
Seventeen percent said they had been denied emergency medical treatment.
Deputy UNHCR representative Fedde Groot said: “There is an urgent need to do the right thing and to turn the rights that exist on paper for the refugees into real benefits. Faced with the volume of need the small number of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) assisting refugees will always be inadequate.”
“These people are surviving despite their problems that make many of their lives miserable and undignified. Their resilience and resourcefulness is remarkable. We need to understand their coping mechanisms so that we can efficiently target the little that we have to give them.
“Some of these people are surviving extremely precariously. We and the South African government need to recognise their rights. South Africa itself needs to realise how much it can benefit from the talented and resourceful people that have found a safe haven in their country,” Groot said.
Director General of Home affairs Barry Gilder said his department was “seriously understaffed, under-utilising technology and experiencing a backlog in processing applications for asylum and refugee status.
“Nevertheless we are bringing a number of measures to address this. The documentation of refugees, including identity documents, will soon be processed in exactly the same way as they are for other South Africans,” he said.
Demographically, two-thirds of the foreigners sheltering in South Africa were asylum seekers and the remaining third were refugees. The average age of the refugee was 31 years and three-quarters had arrived in South Africa alone. Two-thirds of those in the country now arrived after 1999.
Three-quarters of the respondents said they could not find work because they had short-term residence permits. Half said employers were put off by their lack of any documentation and a third were convinced they were excluded from the job market because they were not South African. A quarter of those arriving were reliant on initial food aid. This came chiefly from mosques and churches (41%) and other NGOs (39%).
Of the refugees who applied for documentation before passage of the Refugee Act in Apr. 2000, 27% were still waiting. Now fewer than 71% of applicants since April 2000 were still without documentation.
Asked to priorities their needs, respondents, who were allowed to pick three items put employment first (56%), followed by documentation (53%), education for themselves (48%), housing or shelter (42%) and food (18%). – IPS