News / National
Zimbabweans in South Africa fear mass deportation
08 Jun 2011 at 04:52hrs | Views
South Africa is reportedly considering embarking on a clean-up operation, targeting illegal immigrants, after the July 31 moratorium extended to Zimbabweans last year expires.
A human rights lawyer based in South Africa Nicola Whittaker said this in a report entitled Zimbabweans in South Africa fear mass deportation: The aftermath of the Zimbabwean Documentation Process.
In the report, she stated that the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants feared the clean-up operation might result in documented migrants, including asylum seekers, being unlawfully arrested, detained and possibly even deported from South Africa.
"A pressing concern is that once the moratorium (cessation) on the deportation of Zimbabweans ends on July 31 2011, the South African authorities will round up suspected 'illegal foreigners' en masse and detain them for purposes of deportation, without assessing individually who has a right to be in South Africa and who does not," said Whittaker in her report.
She said all this was due to the flaws in the Zimbabwe Documentation Process (ZDP), which was launched in 2010 for purposes of regularising the position of Zimbabweans in South Africa by dealing with their special applications for work, study and business permits.
"Whilst the ZDP was a commendable initiative in theory, in practice the process was plagued by difficulties such as excluding many Zimbabweans from the process and making them consequently vulnerable to deportation when the July 31, 2010 moratorium on deportations of Zimbabweans is lifted," Whittaker's report said.
She said some of the flaws in the implementation of ZDP included poor communication whereby those without passports were not informed that they could also apply for them.
The report also bemoans lack of civil society organisations working on issues of migration by government, saying these would have ensured the process was suitable and achievable.
According to statistics provided by the South African Home Affairs Department, there are approximately 1,5 million Zimbabweans living in the country and some 276 000 applicants were received and being processed under the ZDP.
A human rights lawyer based in South Africa Nicola Whittaker said this in a report entitled Zimbabweans in South Africa fear mass deportation: The aftermath of the Zimbabwean Documentation Process.
In the report, she stated that the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants feared the clean-up operation might result in documented migrants, including asylum seekers, being unlawfully arrested, detained and possibly even deported from South Africa.
"A pressing concern is that once the moratorium (cessation) on the deportation of Zimbabweans ends on July 31 2011, the South African authorities will round up suspected 'illegal foreigners' en masse and detain them for purposes of deportation, without assessing individually who has a right to be in South Africa and who does not," said Whittaker in her report.
"Whilst the ZDP was a commendable initiative in theory, in practice the process was plagued by difficulties such as excluding many Zimbabweans from the process and making them consequently vulnerable to deportation when the July 31, 2010 moratorium on deportations of Zimbabweans is lifted," Whittaker's report said.
She said some of the flaws in the implementation of ZDP included poor communication whereby those without passports were not informed that they could also apply for them.
The report also bemoans lack of civil society organisations working on issues of migration by government, saying these would have ensured the process was suitable and achievable.
According to statistics provided by the South African Home Affairs Department, there are approximately 1,5 million Zimbabweans living in the country and some 276 000 applicants were received and being processed under the ZDP.
Source - NewsDay
