Zimbabweans denied right to work and education in South Africa

By Tererai Karimakwenda

17 October 2006

The Department of Home Affairs in South Africa has been urged to investigate why a group of at least 40 Zimbabweans who applied for legal documents at the Rosettenville centre were issued asylum-seekers’ permits denying them the right to work or study in South Africa. The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) sent a letter to the department on Tuesday saying they had received several reports from Zimbabwean asylum-seekers who had been issued these permits in the week beginning October 9. An official at the ZEF said refugees are legally entitled to a means of survival and to education in the host countries they live in. The ZEF official explained that South Africa’s own constitution provides for this and the courts in the country agreed. Even applicants whose cases are pending are to be extended the same opportunity to support themselves.

There are also several international statutes including the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951 and the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention that extend the right to work and education to asylum seekers. The ZEF believe denying the Zimbabwean asylum seekers was illegal, and they are urging the Home Affairs department to stop issuing that type of permit immediately.

ZEF said so far it appears that only asylum seekers from Zimbabwe had experienced this injustice and only an extensive investigation would reveal whether other nationalities had been affected.

All the permits that were shown to the ZEF were issued last week from Rosettenville. In the same week other centres that process refugees issued the standard permits. The ZEF, whose mission is to assist Zimbabwean refugees, say South Africa’s Home Affairs must take back the offensive permits and replace them with standard ones. They also believe reparations are due to those affected or they will take legal action.