It is early morning at the Durban office of the Department of Home Affairs and the queue of asylum seekers already snakes well into the parking lot. Umbrellas, to protect against the harsh sun already beating down on those in line, make splashes of colour. But the mood is anything but festive.
“Do you know how many times I’ve stood in this queue?” Steven Ngepnza complains in an angry French accent. “I have to take time off from my work, and I lose money. And then, after two months, I have to come back because those idiots inside still haven’t processed my ID.”
In his mid-twenties, the Congolese refugee, who works as a barber, wears a spotless white Nike sweater. Despite the heat and his raw anger, he looks cool. “You see that I look respectable,” he smiles wryly. “That’s because I have to look good for those people inside the little office. And also, I have my pride. I don’t want to look like a vagrant.”
Ngepnza fled the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to escape being dragged into the conflict, yet he sometimes feels the fight for survival and dignity on the streets of Durban is just a different kind of war.
Congolese represent the largest slice of the almost 200Â 000 applications for asylum in South Africa since 1994, with Burundians and Rwandese also prominent.
Unlike other African countries, South Africa offers neither accommodation in refugee camps nor assistance to recognised refugees or new arrivals seeking asylum. Refugees register as such, supposedly giving them access to the same services as locals in the jobs, housing and banking fields.
But interviews with refugees in Durban underscored the enormous prejudice they face. Skilled people who worked as teachers, nurses, economists and engineers in their former lives now survive by guarding and washing cars, or as informal hairdressers and hawkers.
Like Ngepnza, most of those queuing at home affairs have temporary permits, but say they are trying to get the maroon refugee ID documents. Few know that the maroon IDs are being phased out in favour of smart cards. “I’ve heard about the smart card,” Ngepnza’s Congolese friend, Rene (name has been changed), says. “But it’s a myth. I don’t know anyone who’s got one.”
Refugee community leader Baruti Amisi, also Congolese, scoffs: “I know of four people in Durban with cards, and not many businesses and banks are aware of them either. Home affairs has been dismal in promoting awareness of the smart cards. I’d like to know how many have been issued.”
The refugees’ need for legal identity documents is so overwhelming that people often sleep in the queues to be first in line. They say that when their temporary permit expires, the cost in penalties levied by home affairs officials is R1Â 500 a day. The Mail & Guardian has established that this is a legal imposition, not a bribe.
“If you can’t pay it — and, I mean, who can? — our permit gets confiscated. Then if you’re stopped by police, they put you in jail,” says soft-spoken Burundian John Danangu, who has spent all his life in refugee camps.
Car guard Ginot says he knows someone who was fined R1Â 500 for being a day late in renewing their temporary permit, and who was then sentenced by a court to pay R200 a month. Another friend was put in Westville prison because he could not pay R3Â 000 after failing to pay the fine for two days. He had been unable to take time off work for fear of losing his job.
The refugees’ anger bubbles up when they start talking about the bribes home affairs officials allegedly solicit from them. “They’re always asking for something on the side,” says Rene.
Most say they cannot afford the “standard” bribe of R500, and so they must queue. “I make a R1Â 000 a month at most. So I come here for the day, hoping my permit will be renewed,” said one.
According to Elizabeth Kanani of the Union of Refugee Women, many refugees say that “if you pay a bribe, you get your documents quickly. If you can’t, you wait for months, sometimes years.”
Although the maroon ID is supposed to provide access to jobs, the refugees apply only to avoid police persecution. There is unanimous agreement that the document is ignored by South African employers.
“If you apply for a job or want to open a bank account, they want a green ID,” said DRC man Alexis Matuta, adding that a South African driver’s licence is more useful than a refugee document.
The refugees also say they are constantly harassed, branded as ama-kwerekwere and denied public services because they cannot speak Zulu.
A Congolese refugee said that when he took his sister to a Durban hospital, he was told to go to the Red Cross or the United Nations.
Congolese car guard Alain (not his real name), an electrician in his former life, works at upmarket shopping centre The Pavilion, in Westville. Despite having been in South Africa since 2001, he has no South African friends.
“Maybe we greet each other, but I can’t say any local black people are my friends,” he says. “I don’t know of any refugee who has friends among local blacks.”
Alain and his family of four live in a bachelor’s flat on Point Road, where he pays R1Â 000 a month rent for the privilege of sharing a bathroom and kitchen with 40 other people.
“That place is so dirty, ” he says. “I try to keep my flat clean, but with everything falling apart, you wonder whether it’s worth the effort.”
Although township housing is cheaper, xenophobia has driven the refugees to the city, where they are often overcharged.
Yuma Bahande is a trained nurse who says she can’t get a proper nursing job because registering with the nursing council is so difficult. She now works as a hairdresser in what she calls a “shanty little place”, barely earning enough to buy food and pay her kids’ school fees.
Bahande is worried that the treatment of refugees in South Africa will affect her children. “They see that we have no dignity and they become angry. Many of them have never known their own country, but South Africa does not want them. They are growing up rootless.”
Refugee community leader Amisi agrees. “Many children are denied education. What kind of people are these conditions breeding?”
More than 100Â 000 stuck in the home affairs backlog
Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Nkosana Sibuyi admits that his department faces a daunting backlog in processing refugees’ applications for documents. But with a new campaign launched by home affairs under way, Sibuyi hopes the backlog will be cleared by July this year.
“We have started the Refugee Backlog Campaign, which will focus mainly on building capacity in the department,” he said.
At the beginning of the year, the department had a backlog of 105Â 021 asylum applications. Last year, Parliament’s home affairs committee criticised the pace at which applications were being processed, allegedly 20 a day.
Early this year, the Cape Town High Court handed down a telling judgement in favour of seven men from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had challenged the hold-up in processing their asylum applications.
Judge Dennis van Reenen slated home affairs, saying the backlog in applications and extensions was “untenable” and violated the Constitution and the Refugee Act.
“Having failed, since 2000, to introduce adequate and effective measures to address a gradually worsening situation, the department is responsible for the lack of adequate facilities essential for an expeditious handling of applications for asylum-seeker permits,” Judge Van Reenen said.
He ordered the department to submit an affidavit to the court by May, setting out what strategies were in place to ensure the smooth running of the refugees’ office.
In a report last year, Human Rights Watch highlighted corruption and incompetence in home affairs, which were hampering asylum seekers. It said a major problem was that temporary protection for asylum seekers expired before they received permanent documents.
South African law gives refugees permission to work, if their application has not been processed within 180 days. But not many refugees are aware of this loophole.
Sibuyi said he had heard allegations of corruption in the refugee office, but challenged victims to come forward and report cases to officials.
“Corruption is a cancer that must be defeated at all costs,” he said. “We encourage refugees to report it to us. We will protect their identity and ensure they are not victimised.”
About 60 allegedly corrupt officials were identified last year, but only three have been prosecuted. Sibuyi was unable to say how many of the cases related to refugee corruption.
He said the department “took it for granted that employees will realise that maroon identity documents give holders the same rights as South Africans. We had some engagement with the media to promote this.”
According to Sibuyi, about 500 smart cards have been issued. He said there has been a lot of interest in the cards and assured refugees that all glitches relating to them had been sorted out.
“But we have to raise more awareness, so that cardholders do not encounter difficulty,” he said.