Reports | Solidarity Peace Trust

Perils and Pitfalls – Migrants and Deportation in South Africa

Relatives pray outside after visiting detainees inside Lindela Detention Centre, Krugersdorp, South Africa

In association with PASSOP

This report brings to light the discrepancies between the legal requirements around deportation of migrants and the anomalies in its practical application. It is clear from the findings that South Africa is falling short of its lofty legal standards in the manner that the various government agencies are dealing with this huge challenge. The overall picture of abuse, corruption, lack of capacity, and the neglect of the rule of law in this area is a cause of great concern.

In this matter Zimbabwe represents a particular challenge, with Zimbabweans making up the largest number of migrants in South Africa in the context of the crisis that has engulfed that country for over a decade. The hope that the SADC mediated Global Political Agreement would provide the basis for a long-term stabilization in the country is yet to be fulfilled, and South African leadership in this process remains critical.

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Rights reserved: Please credit the Solidarity Peace Trust and Passop as the original source for this material republished on other websites. Please provide a link back to http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/1192/perils-and-pitfalls/ for this report

This article can be cited in other publications as follows: Solidarity Peace Trust and Passop (2012) Perils and Pitfalls

“Hard Times” Matabeleland: urban deindustrialization – and rural hunger

A pregnant woman stands in her empty kitchen, rural Gwanda, October 2011. “No food, no work, no money. If only I could get cattle to help me plough.”

SPT Report

Nationally, Zimbabwe is more food secure at the end of 2011 than it has been for several years. However, parts of Zimbabwe suffered serious crop failure earlier this year and a million people are still predicted to need supplementary feeding. In Gwanda, Matabeleland South, the authors found that almost half of households indicated a day without food in the recent past.[1] Only 17% of families reported eating three meals a day, meaning that 83% of households were, weeks before the onset of the official “hungry season in October”, already making food compromises daily. Grazing is critical, and people are traveling further to find water. This has been one of the hottest Octobers on record. Several families reported that baboons were killing and eating young goats and chickens, as the hunger now affects all living creatures in this area. Several families had no livestock left at all, not even one chicken.

Of concern by the end of October, is that supplementary feeding has not yet started, nor has the distribution of seed, yet the first rains have arrived. If people are to avoid yet another season of crop failure, there is an urgent need for free agricultural inputs to roll out now. Furthermore, many families are in desperate need of food now.

Deindustrialization in Bulawayo

This hunger – already so extreme ahead of the recognized “peak hunger season” that officially lasts from October to February – is taking place at a time when Bulawayo, traditionally the source of employment and resources for Matabeleland, has seen a cataclysmic loss of jobs in industry in the last two years. This means that part of the greater support system for rural Matabeleland is highly compromised. The report traces...Read more