Lisa Isaacs
SOUTH Africa is one of the largest recipients of asylum applications in the world thanks to its liberal policy on refugees – and will persist with this approach.
This was the message from Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Fatima Chohan at the launch of the inaugural session of the Cape Town Programme in International Law yesterday, which was hosted by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UCT.
The four-day programme will focus on the specific challenges of refugee protection in Africa, with senior officials from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa in attendance.
Chohan said four of the 10 leading refugee-producing countries in the world were located in Africa and included Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea.
“Most countries on the continent host refugees in camps that are maintained by the UNHCR. While individuals present with desperate and heart-wrenching circumstances, we must reconcile ourselves to the reality that hosting refugees is taxing on any country, whether it is a wealthy country or not. From a resource point of view, social, economic and political challenges arise and quite often international relations are affected in this regard.
“South Africa has accepted the difficulties posed by a liberal asylum regime and persists in it. We may not have the best facilities, we may not have a comprehensive social assistance policy for asylum seekers, but with all of these difficulties, refugee communities flourish here,” she said.
Chohan said her department’s greatest challenge was eliminating corruption. In Cape Town, an audit of files revealed “blatant corruption”. In some instances visas were continuously issued after appeals were denied by the Refugee Appeal Board, or in the absence of application forms, she said.
She said the department was closing down inefficient centres and was working to clear application backlogs in these offices.
Fatima Khan, director of the Refugee Rights Programme at UCT, said the conference was borne out of the need to explore refugee rights in Africa.
“Refugees are an extremely vulnerable group. The main aim of the conference is to share our knowledge with government officials around Africa who are faced with implementing laws,” she said.
Topics to be discussed at the conference include the international legal framework for refugees’ protection, an overview of the 1951 Refugee Convention, asylum and refugee policies in southern Africa; the right to seek and obtain asylum under the African human rights system; refugee status determination in southern Africa; and strengthening refugee protection.