Neighbors In Need Zimbabweans Seeking Refuge in South Africa Copyright © 2008 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-56432-343-9 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA Tel: +1 212 290 4700, Fax: +1 212 736 1300 [email protected] Poststraße 4-5 10178 Berlin, Germany Tel: +49 30 2593 06-10, Fax: +49 30 2593 0629 [email protected] Avenue des Gaulois, 7 1040 Brussels, Belgium Tel: + 32 (2) 732 2009, Fax: + 32 (2) 732 0471 [email protected] 64-66 Rue de Lausanne 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 738 0481, Fax: +41 22 738 1791 [email protected] 2-12 Pentonville Road, 2nd Floor London N1 9HF, UK Tel: +44 20 7713 1995, Fax: +44 20 7713 1800 [email protected] 27 Rue de Lisbonne 75008 Paris, France Tel: +33 (1)43 59 55 35, Fax: +33 (1) 43 59 55 22 [email protected] 1630 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel: +1 202 612 4321, Fax: +1 202 612 4333 [email protected] Web Site Address: http://www.hrw.org June 2008 1-56432-343-9 Neighbors In Need Zimbabweans Seeking Refuge in South Africa I. Summary......................................................................................................................... 1 II. Methodology.................................................................................................................17 III. Recommendations....................................................................................................... 19 To the Government of South Africa ................................................................................19 To UNHCR in South Africa ..............................................................................................21 To international donors .................................................................................................21 IV. Zimbabweans in South Africa ......................................................................................22 Increased Numbers of Zimbabweans in South Africa .................................................... 22 The South African Government’s Response to Date....................................................... 24 Why Zimbabweans are Coming to South Africa: an Overview of a “Mixed Flow” of People ......................................................................................................................................27 Legal Obligations Towards Lawfully Present Zimbabweans........................................... 30 Zimbabweans’ Assistance Rights and Needs in South Africa ........................................ 32 V. Fleeing persecution: Operation Murambatsvina (“the evictions”)..................................38 The Evictions ................................................................................................................ 38 People Directly Affected................................................................................................ 40 Explanations for the Evictions....................................................................................... 44 The Government’s Failure to Assist People Targeted by the Evictions............................ 48 Legality......................................................................................................................... 49 VI. Fleeing Economic Deprivation...................................................................................... 50 Political Repression, Including those Indirectly Affected by Mass Forced Evictions ....... 50 Deterioration of the Economy Fuelled by Ban on Informal Trading..................................52 Food..............................................................................................................................55 Health and HIV/AIDS .....................................................................................................57 VII. International Refugee Law .......................................................................................... 61 Persecution of Zimbabweans Targeted by the Evictions .................................................61 Zimbabweans Targeted by the Evictions Suffered Serious Harm ................................... 62 Showing that Zimbabweans Targeted by the Evictions were Viewed as Having a “Political Opinion” .......................................................................................................................74 Showing that Zimbabweans Targeted by the Evictions Fear Persecution Because of their Perceived “Political Opinion” ........................................................................................75 Other Considerations under Refugee Law Affecting Claims of Zimbabweans Targeted by the Evictions..................................................................................................................77 Dealing with Potentially High Numbers of Asylum Claims by People Targeted by the Evictions........................................................................................................................81 VIII. Failings in the Asylum and Deportation Systems Leading to Refoulement of Zimbabweans...................................................................................................................82 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 82 Ongoing Failings in South Africa’s Asylum System Contributing to a Generalized High Risk of Refoulement...................................................................................................... 83 Obstacles to Gaining Access to the Asylum Procedure and Risk of Refoulement In- Country.........................................................................................................................85 Obstacles to Gaining Access to Refugee Status Determination: Delays in Processing Claims, Low Quality Decision-Making, and Limits to Appeals System Resulting in Risk of Refoulement................................................................................................................. 89 Clearing the Backlog and Coping with New Applications: the Asylum System under Continuous Stress ........................................................................................................ 92 The DHA’s “Turnaround Strategy” and Improving the Asylum System ........................... 95 Deportation Practice Leading to Generalized Risk of Refoulement................................. 96 IX. Adopting a Broad-Based Approach to Zimbabweans in South Africa: Allowing Entry, Regularizing Status, Ending Deportations and Granting the Right to Work...................... 102 Overview of Need and Reasons for Broad-Based Approach..........................................102 Current Options Available to Zimbabweans for Regularizing their Status in South Africa ....................................................................................................................................106 Adopting a Broad-Based Approach..............................................................................107 Exercising Discretion to Adopt a Broad-Based Approach: a New “Temporary Immigration Exemption Status for Zimbabweans”........................................................................... 110 X. Acknowledgments....................................................................................................... 115 I. Summary Since 2005 an estimated one to 1.5 million Zimbabweans have fled across the border into South Africa, the region’s economic power. They have run from persecution, for the majority in the form of targeted, mass, forced evictions destroying homes and livelihoods, and from economic destitution as the Zimbabwean economy collapses. Recent refugees fleeing the brutal crackdown on political opponents of President Robert Mugabe in the aftermath of the March 2008 Zimbabwean elections are the latest wave. In South Africa they face a vulnerable and uncertain situation. Without documents, they have no right to work and have limited rights and access to social assistance such as health care and housing. Liable to arrest and deportation at any time, they live in permanent insecurity. Due to South Africa’s dysfunctional asylum system and unlawful deportation practices, many of the tens of thousands that have applied for asylum are at constant risk of being refouled—unlawfully returned. These are not voluntary economic migrants, even if for many economic destitution is one of multiple reasons for crossing into South Africa. Their presence in South Africa underlines a failure of foreign policy—the failure to use South Africa’s leverage effectively to address the brutal human rights violations and failed economic policies in Zimbabwe causing their flight. Their undocumented status and vulnerability in South Africa, and the increasing public resentment against them, represents a failure of domestic policy—the failure to develop and implement a legal, comprehensive, and workable policy to address the reality of the existence of Zimbabweans in South Africa. The choice the South African government faces is difficult and stark. Either it continues to breach its fundamental obligations under international law and ignores the reality of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Zimbabweans on its territory. To do this means allowing many to be mistreated by police, abused and exploited by employers, while many others are removed haphazardly, arbitrarily, 1 Human Rights Watch June 2008 expensively, and