Conclusion
Zimbabwe’s biggest export will continue to be its people, and South Africa will continue to be
their favourite destination. There is a dire need therefore, for the South African government
to develop a coherent and humane policy towards undocumented Zimbabweans. There are
already over a million Zimbabweans in the country, the majority of them undocumented,
eking out bleak lives on the edge of visibility. Access to health care and education for migrants
needs to be assured. There is a need to implement the undertaking to provide undocumented
Zimbabweans with a special dispensation under Section 31(2) b, of the Refugee Act, that will
allow them a document regularizing their presence in the country. The makeshift
arrangement of issuing everyone with ASPs, and then denying them asylum in due course is a
haphazard interim measure that needs to be reconsidered.
The Zimbabwean coalition government should be developing a more systematic policy
towards the diaspora, and should be incorporating its citizens abroad into the changes
currently taking place, in particular the “healing” and constitution‐making processes. There
should be more strategic planning around job creation and the luring home of the many
thousands of highly skilled Zimbabweans who, out of sheer financial desperation, are
currently picking grapes in far away valleys, or labouring on road building sites, while their
children are being raised by ageing, under resourced grandparents. Many children, in
particular orphans, are making the long and hazardous journey alone to South Africa, where
they are highly at risk of abuse. With a million orphans in Zimbabwe, the rising tide of
unaccompanied minors heading for South Africa needs to be carefully monitored and a safety
net, such as that provided by the recommendations of the Skelton report, needs to be fully in
place in South Africa to improve their protection.
The writing is on the wall that there will be more xenophobia in South Africa, as none of the
underlying issues are being adequately addressed, being subsumed in South Africa’s bigger
challenge of poverty alleviation and service delivery for its own people. Where poor South
Africans and poor migrants mingle, violence will continue to be seen, as long standing
prejudices against foreigners and political turf wars play out at the expense of migrants. With
the end of the WFC building boom in sight, and with local government elections looming in
South Africa, circumstances could be pushing people towards ethnically, politically and
poverty‐driven violence in 2011. Between May 2008 and the end of 2009, there seems to have
been little learnt about heading off xenophobic violence, judging by the response of officials to
events in De Doorns. The question remains unanswered as to how long it will take the
authorities in South Africa to learn from the lessons of the past and to put in place measures
to protect all who live within their borders, without prejudice.
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