SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CoRMSA welcomes President Zuma's new administration and looks forward to positive and proactive policy changes to protect migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in South Africa. Former Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Minister Mapisa-Nqakula initiated a process of migration policy review and we hope the new administration will continue with this process. Pragmatic policy reforms will not only assist migrants, but will encourage investments in South Africa, help build the country's economy, and promote the universal principles of human dignity to which South Africa is committed.
The following report outlines a series of migration dynamics and critical issues that should inform any policy review. As the May 2008 violence against non-nationals starkly illustrates, effectively addressing migration is critical to human security, the country's developmental trajectory, and South Africa's international reputation. As the economy slows and South Africans begin to lose jobs, there will be growing pressure for even more restrictive migration policies. However, bowing to these pressures would be backward-looking, regressive, and self-defeating.
We will find no answers to South Africa's problems by halting migration. Substantively restricting migration is neither possible nor is it a solution. Migration is not a threat to South Africans' economic or physical security. Managed properly it can lead to investment, job creation, and a more productive economy. Only through thorough policy reform and effective protection of migrant and citizen rights will South Africa be able to address its population's need for economic and physical security. Moreover, as past years have demonstrated time and time again, allowing any segment of the population to remain marginalised and outside of social and legal protection puts us all at risk. A new policy framework should focus on the efficient import of skills; rights-based management of asylum seekers and refugees; management of economic immigration that promotes national and regional development; management of a variety of risks associated with the different policy options; and ensuring effective and distinct macro- and micro-level refugee and migration management.
This year's report focuses on key elements of refugee and migrant rights protection in South Africa. Based on extensive research by CoRMSA and its partners, each section offers a series of recommendations to promote positive and pragmatic reforms. The report draws particular attention to how little has been done to address violence against non-nationals and the country's limited ability to provide humanitarian assistance. The lack of resources and humanitarian coordination augurs poorly for the country's ability to protect anyone, citizen or otherwise, should we face a natural or man-made disaster. The report also considers policy towards Zimbabwean migrants and what are often ill-informed and dangerous policies to curb human trafficking and smuggling.
The points below provide a summary of the report's primary findings and recommendations.
Violence Against Non-Nationals
- Violence against non-nationals has been a long-standing and increasingly prominent feature of post-Apartheid South Africa. The May 2008 attacks reflected fundamental tensions and dysfunctions in contemporary South African society and politics. More than a year on, the factors that led to the violence have not been addressed. There is little reason to believe that violence against non-nationals and other 'outsiders' will not happen again.
- Anti-foreigner violence is not a consequence of a 'third force', poor border control, changes in national political leadership, rising food and commodity prices, or poor service delivery. Nor was the violence a direct result of poverty or joblessness. Instead, the violence was fundamentally the result of institutional marginalisation of some poor and non-citizen residents, and of local government failures.
- In almost all cases where it occurred, violence was organised and led by identifiable local groups and individuals-primarily official or self-appointed community leaders-who used the attacks to further their political and economic interests.
- Officials' visible ambivalence regarding the violence and its victims has helped entrench public convictions that non-citizens are not equal before the law. There are also indications that some police officers supported or passively tolerated the violence and others were involved in looting.
- Claims that the post-violence reintegration has been peaceful and unproblematic are false. While many non-nationals who fled in fear of the violence have returned to South African communities, these are typically to communities where violence did not occur. There is evidence that those returning to communities where attacks took place face threats of further violence. Since May 2008, local leaders have made numerous public statements that they did not want non-nationals back in their communities and have continued to make overt threats against them.
- Non-nationals have been repeatedly attacked and killed in South Africa over many years with few being held accountable for these hate crimes. Actual and perceived impunity only encourages further attacks.