Guests in South Africa

by Editor · June 18, 2003

Behind every story of a political refugee there is a story of desperate trauma. Many have seen their family and friends murdered, and their own lives endangered. To save themselves, they have had to abandon homes and livelihoods in exchange for asylum in a strange, often unfriendly country.

South Africa is one of such largely unwelcoming countries. Political refugees who must not be confused with economic refugees (though even here there are some stories of desperation) often are faced with a poisonous culture of xenophobia.

In many cases, refugees are subjected to discrimination, extortion, and abuse by police and civil service. In the labour market, they usually are exploited because of their desperate circumstances. Except for a few enterprising refugees who make a living in the informal sector, most exist in grinding poverty. In extreme (though not rare) cases, they are murdered.

Such treatment of political refugees who are exercising their right guaranteed under the UN Declaration for Human Rights, the Geneva Convention and various pan-African protocols to seek asylum from persecution, is no credit to South Africa.

One quickly forgets that not too long ago, South Africans themselves were accepted around the world as refugees from persecution under the apartheid regime. Often, such refuge was provided by African states. Today, many of these exiles are in government.

It is ironic then that a government, many of whose members benefitted from the hospitality of other African countries, should be so inept in dealing with the refugee dilemma.

The new Refugees Act promises to shorten the government’s previously unwieldy asylum process. In terms of that law, refugees are to receive special identity cards and travel documents, and will be granted the same rights as South African citizens.

Yet, the Act is flawed. Asylum seekers that is those not yet given official status are barred from receiving employment and education. Chillingly, the department of home affairs also sought to introduce an amendment, which would overrule the principle of non-refoulement, which prevents refugees being sent back to the regions they came from if their lives would still be in danger.

The reputation of refugees has suffered on account of an influx of foreigners who engage in crime, often of the organised type. These criminals are not refugees (though, of course, some political refugees resort to crime because of their poverty).

This week we publish two accounts of refugees, stories which will touch the hearts of all but the most callous of Christians. These accounts are by no means unique. They are representative of the experiences of many who had to flee their country.

The Catholic Church, an institution that knows no borders and whose concern is all of humanity, especially the marginalised, has done remarkable work in addressing the plight of refugees.

Catholic groups such as the Jesuit Refugee Service in Gauteng, Refugee Pastoral Care in Durban, and the Scalibrini Fathers in Cape Town offer material, spiritual, educational, medical and rehabilitative care to refugees, regardless of religious background (many refugees in general are Catholics).

Some individual Catholics have privately taken the initiative in providing shelter and care to refugees. In providing such care, the Church in South Africa is indeed fulfilling the need to be a shepherd to the most vulnerable.