New rights for Cape refugees?

In a first for Africa, the Cape Town metropolitan council is drawing up a policy to tackle the xenophobic upsurge that has seen dozens of Somali traders driven from the city’s townships.

But critics complain about the slow pace of implementation and say it has been watered down.

The council outlined the proposed policy on refugees and asylum seekers shortly ahead of World Refugee Day last month. Before it becomes official, it must pass through internal council processes and be submitted for public comment.

The policy focuses on refugee rights, including equal access to city services and fair and accessible policing and the integration of new arrivals into South African society. One proposal, for example, is that refugees who do not speak a local language should receive help in filling in official documents.

Kemal Omar, Cape Town’s manager of intergovernmental relations, argues that the development of policy can play a key role ‘in building socially cohesive communities”.

But for Fatima Khan, coordinator of the refugee rights project at the University of Cape Town’s law clinic, the policy remains a disappointment.

‘When we agreed to draft it for the city last year, we were very optimistic and excited to be a part of what would have been a first for any African city,” she says. ‘But at this moment I am particularly disappointed. The policy has still not been ratified, and last year a very watered-down version was rephrased as a declaration.

‘A year later I am completely unimpressed by the city and its efforts to make Cape Town a better place for refugees or asylum seekers.”

Darshan Vigneswaran, a postdoctoral fellow in the Forced Migration Studies Programme at Wits University countered that the policy inadequacies are at national level, and Cape Town’s proposed policy is in some ways ‘a compensation for that”.

‘It is great to see local government taking it seriously,” he adds, ‘and I think there are different types of simple interventions that could improve the plight of victims of xenophobia.”

The impact of such interventions is hard to measure, and it remains unclear whether resentment of foreigners can be addressed through government policy.

Kwesi Kwaa Prah, director of the Cape Town-based Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society, points out that xenophobia need not automatically take a vicious form. ‘It can just be a feeling of social distance. But then it can become virulent, vicious and violent.”

Cape Town has been particularly hard hit by xenophobic violence, with Somalians attacked in parts of the city, and, more recently, reports of murders of Burundians in Nyanga township.

Prah believes that in South Africa the level of xenophobia is a direct result of apartheid. ‘Across the world, those who have experienced oppression tend to hate themselves or those who are standing in similar shoes,” he says. ‘It is to do with the collective psychology of the oppression of African peoples.”

But, he insisted, the authorities must play a more active role. ‘They must crack down harder on crime resulting from xenophobia. We need to hear a little more from higher up.”

In addition to xenophobia, many refugees in South Africa are also hamstrung by local officials, who often do not recognise the ‘red ID books” issued to those with formal refugee status.

Many Somali traders who spoke to the Mail & Guardian said they are turned away from banks when they tried to open accounts using the red books. This makes them easy targets for crime because other traders know they carry cash.

Omar said that because most institutions do not understand or recognise the red books, ‘they’re actually meaningless”.

‘When Mandela dies, they’ll kill us’

Foreign Africans in Cape Town spoke to the Tanya Farber about their experiences of xenophobia:

Patrick Kabeya (43, Congolese): ‘Not all South Africans react badly to us, but some do. We foreigners stick together. We don’t see a difference in each other.”

Prince Eze (39, Nigerian): ‘The men say we’re stealing their women, but the women tell us they prefer us because their men treat them badly.”

Ali Didier (35, Congolese): ‘As soon as Mandela dies, they’ll kill all the foreigners.”

Bizamana Jackson (28, Burundian): ‘ In Sea Point, we don’t have problems. Plenty of South African customers even come here for haircuts. But in the locations, it’s bad.”

Fernando Hono (Angolan): ‘Affirmative action works against us. Vacancies are kept for South African citizens despite the skills we bring. We’re put in the same category as whites.”

Home affairs: land of limbo

Of the 53 000 applications for asylum registered last year at the department of home affairs’ five refugee reception offices, more than 18 000 were Zimbabweans, the Wits University-linked consortium for refugees and migrants in South Africa has revealed.

Its research shows that the number of asylum seekers and refugees has increased substantially in South Africa over the past five years, but remains small in comparison with countries such as Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

Between 2000 and 2006, South Africa granted refugee status to about 30 200 applicants, of a total of close to 200 000.

Most of the remainder are still waiting for their cases to be adjudicated, creating a group of people living in limbo. Home affairs has publicly pledged to reduce the backlog, but little progress has been made. Of the 53 361 new applications received by the department last year, less than 10% were effectively processed during the year. Of these, only 796 were initially accepted for refugee status.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees highlights the fact that two- thirds of the refugees in South Africa have completed secondary school or a higher level of education and, within this group, almost a third have some tertiary education.

More than two-thirds of refugees had experience in skilled and semi-skilled work before arriving in South Africa. — Tanya Farber