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South Africa is temporarily moving away from UN refugee conventions in order to limit immigration.
The African National Congress (ANC) government has said it wants to “reset” the liberal asylum and immigration policies it can no longer afford.
The proposed reform comes amid public resentment over existing immigration levels and with the ANC poised to lose its absolute majority in next year’s general election.
Immigration is most likely to be at the top of the electoral agenda, and a poll conducted earlier this year found that 89 per cent of the electorate believe the ANC is not tackling the issue well.
A new government discussion paper proposes abandoning the 1951 UN refugee conference and the 1967 refugee protocol, so the government can tighten restrictions.
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said South Africa had made a mistake in signing the treaties in the mid-1990s by insisting on the option of fleeing safe clauses.
Under the proposed reforms, South Africa would rejoin the conventions after restricting refugees’ right to work, as well as the right to education and the right to claim citizenship.
New legislation would also be introduced to make it less difficult for refugees to return to countries that are no longer dangerous.
The existing liberals were approved in the 1990s, when the ANC adopted a pan-African stance on immigration, partly to thank countries that had supported its fight against non-partisanship.
Motsoaledi said the policies were now and required a “radical overhaul. “
He said: “On this continent, the replacement winds blow hard and fast. Almost every week there is a coup d’état somewhere in Africa. “
The ANC says the country’s patchwork of immigration laws wants to be replaced because it has too many loopholes and vulnerable loopholes. He says those resources have been exploited through traffickers, criminals and economic migrants.
“The political and legislative deficiencies in this aspect of the Ministry of the Interior have created fertile ground for violent confrontations between foreigners and citizens, adding the emergence of opposing groups, either on the side or opposed to the existing immigration system,” says its white report. . says the newspaper.
South Africa’s middle-income status, relative wealth, employment opportunities and democratic institutions mean that it attracts more immigrants than any country on the continent.
The 2022 census counted more than 2. 4 million immigrants out of a population of 62 million, but officials admit they have struggled to assess the numbers as they should because many foreigners are undocumented and enter illegally.
The census found that several cents came from neighboring Zimbabwe, followed by Mozambique and Lesotho.
However, despite its relative wealth, South Africa is also in an economic crisis and has an unemployment rate of around 33 percent. Foreigners are widely accused of taking jobs away from locals, committing crimes, and overburdening public services.
The country has experienced waves of violence against foreigners, most recently in 2019, when another 12 people died and thousands of foreigners lost their homes. Many small foreign businesses, especially in the major black and densely populated townships around Johannesburg, have been destroyed.
Last year, a vigilante organization called Operation Dadula, which means “force” or “overthrow” in the Zulu language, protested in public hospitals, rejecting those who might not turn out to be South Africans.
Fikile Mbalula, ANC secretary-general, described illegal immigrants earlier this year as “a time bomb for the country”, straining public finances and slowing down efforts on services.
Critics of the government say immigration is to distract attention from its own mismanagement and that its rhetoric threatens to further expand anti-foreigner sentiment.
Stephen Friedman, a political analyst, said foreigners in South Africa are “scapegoats. “
He told South Africa’s Financial Mail: “It is true that the law welcomes everyone.
“The government simply does not recognize that the vast majority of foreigners in South Africa have skills, work hard and contribute to society. “
Meanwhile, the British government has hinted that it may be willing to abandon the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to implement its Rwandan plan to prevent migrants from crossing the English Channel.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the government’s asylum policy was illegal, saying it would violate foreign law and human rights.
This led some Conservative MPs to call for the UK to leave the ECHR.
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