Bullying tactics: Operation Dudula members have taken it upon themselves to mount surveillance in public health centres, preventing foreigners from using South African clinics. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
Xenophobia in South Africa has become a recurrent social crisis, which often targets African migrants whom locals pejoratively label as amakwerekwere or “foreigners”. This hostility is most visible in sectors such as housing, jobs and, recently, public health services.
In recent years, reports have emerged of South Africans verbally abusing African migrants and physically preventing those who attempt to access public hospitals, either as irregular migrants, permanent residents or naturalised citizens with full legal rights.
Such actions reveal a troubling gap in civic education — many South Africans lack the basic awareness that residency status or naturalisation confers equal access to social amenities, including healthcare, as these individuals pay taxes.
The ignorance is compounded by political scapegoating and populist rhetoric, which fuel suspicion and hostility toward fellow Africans.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated South African problem but a continental error that has been repeated in countries such as Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
The urgent solution lies in reimagining civic education to foster tolerance, social cohesion and continental solidarity from childhood.
Hospitals as battlegrounds of belonging
In South Africa, public hospitals have become flashpoints of xenophobic tension. Native South Africans, through Operation Dudula, have taken it upon themselves to mount surveillance in public health centres, denying African migrants access to healthcare.
Patients and even healthcare workers sometimes accuse African migrants of draining resources meant for citizens, a claim frequently repeated by politicians seeking easy scapegoats for systemic failures in service delivery.
Yet, South Africa’s Constitution guarantees the right to healthcare for all, regardless of nationality or legal status.
Furthermore, permanent residents and naturalised citizens are legally indistinguishable from native-born South Africans in terms of access to public amenities.
The hostility migrants face is thus not rooted in legal exclusion but in widespread ignorance of civic rights and responsibilities.
Recently, a video surfaced of an African migrant being accosted by three South African men representing Operation Dudula, whose duty it was to prevent migrants from being attended to at a hospital. Unlike many of the videos which have appeared, this migrant stands up to them and defends his rights.
The opposing group appear confused as they seem not to understand all he is saying. One thing stands out — they stopped the harassment.
This ignorance reflects a failure in South Africa’s civic education framework. While the post-apartheid state introduced life orientation as a subject in schools, its civic dimension appears weak and often not properly delivered to pupils.
As a result, many South Africans grow up without a deep understanding of citizenship, residency, rights and the pan-African ideals espoused by leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Nelson Mandela.
The consequence is a population vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation by opportunistic politicians, as is the case currently.
The political scapegoating of migrants
Politicians across Africa have long used migrants as scapegoats for their own governance failures.
In South Africa, leaders from both the ruling and opposition parties have, at different times, suggested that foreigners overwhelm healthcare and education systems.
Such rhetoric resonates with frustrated citizens facing unemployment, poor infrastructure and underfunded hospitals, but it distracts from the structural mismanagement and corruption that are the real culprits.
This political misdirection is not unique to South Africa. In Côte d’Ivoire during the 1990s, the doctrine of ivoirité was weaponised to exclude northern Ivorians and immigrants from Burkina Faso and Mali from political and social rights.
In Nigeria, violent outbursts have occurred against West African migrants, particularly in urban areas where competition over scarce resources fuels suspicion, for example, Ghana Must Go in 1983. Most recently in Ghana, there have been reports of resentment and harassment directed at Nigerian traders, with accusations that they take over local markets.
These cases illustrate that xenophobia is not a South African anomaly but part of a wider continental malaise where African migrants are vilified rather than embraced as contributors to economic and cultural growth.
The deeper problem: Civic ignorance
At the heart of this issue is a lack of civic education. In many African countries, civic education is either poorly developed or narrowly focused on patriotism, failing to instil a broader understanding of human rights, legal status and pan-African solidarity.
Most citizens are not taught that residency and naturalisation confer equal rights to social amenities or that African states have signed regional protocols guaranteeing free movement and access to services, such as the African Union’s Protocol on Free Movement of Persons and the Economic Community of West African States’ Protocol on Free Movement.
This educational gap allows myths to thrive. For example, the belief that migrants are “illegal” by default and that they do not pay taxes and therefore exploit local resources.
In reality, many African migrants contribute significantly to host economies through labour, entrepreneurship and taxes. Without basic civic literacy, however, these contributions remain invisible, and hostility festers.
Civic education as an antidote
The persistence of xenophobic actions across Africa highlights the urgent need for a transformative approach to civic education. Such an approach must begin in schools, where children should be taught the meaning of citizenship, residency, naturalisation and the regional protocols on free movement.
At the same time, civic education should promote a pan-African identity by reminding citizens of the continent’s history of unity, solidarity and shared struggles against colonialism, values central to the African Union.
Equally important is the debunking of myths about migration through evidence-based teaching that demonstrates the economic, social and cultural contributions of migrants. Education must also foster tolerance by cultivating empathy, inclusivity and respect for diversity, while empowering citizens to hold politicians accountable instead of scapegoating foreigners.
Crucially, this framework should not be confined to classrooms.
Public campaigns, media initiatives and community dialogues can extend civic literacy to adults, particularly in marginalised communities where xenophobia thrives.
The African citizenship that the AU seeks to achieve will continue to be a myth if these salient issues are not addressed.
Dr Samuel Okunade, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Johannesburg.