South Africa's Asylum System Is At Breaking Point

Worried: Somali refugee women listen to speakers at a meeting to discuss problems.

Cape Town , SA, August 23, 2006 – Addressing a Dialogue with Refugee Women conference in Muizenberg on Tuesday, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said: "I am aware that our asylum system is overburdened to a point of crisis".

She blamed the situation on her officials and immigrants abusing the system. The dialogue was attended by several hundred refugee women from Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

The minister said it was difficult for her department to differentiate between who was an asylum-seeker, a refugee or an illegal immigrant.

'Some people push their luck'

"This has led to a huge backlog of refugee status-determination cases," said Nqakula. Her department has since set up a refugee backlog project to expedite applications, said Nqakula.

"Some people push their luck even though they know they do not qualify for refugee status."

Millions of refugees coming to the country do not have proper documents and this ends in a lack of access to basic services like health and schooling for their children.

Sywie Mwela from the DRC said refugees had "big difficulties. "No house, my child has no school and there are no jobs even though I am a nurse".

Fatima Kahn, of the University of Cape Town's legal clinic, said there were few asylum-seekers granted refugee status in the Western Cape.

Give refugees ID's: Home Affairs minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, right, wants officials to grant asylum seekers refugee status and ID documents, she said at A Dialogue With Refugee Women Conference in Muizenberg. Photos: Enver Essop, Cape Argus

"I have many women who are asylum-seekers who come with rejection letters to me," said Kahn.

"A Kenyan woman came to me with a rejection letter from home affairs. The basis of her claim was female genital mutilation. She was told she was not a refugee because there is no war in Kenya."

Kahn questioned Home Affairs' bias to political refugees: "In that rejection letter there is a bias towards people who are persecuted for political reasons".

She said some of the reasons given by the department were not progressive.

The minister has vowed that asylum-seeker cases will be processed quickly.

The availability of a refugee status document allows refugees to apply for IDs, which will help avoid abuses and assist them when job-hunting.

Source: Cape Argus, Aug 23, 2006

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