FENLEY: Political turmoil and starvation are forcing thousands of Zimbabweans to cross the Limpopo River illegally into South Africa. Pregnant women and children have joined the exodus seeking a better life in our cities. But many soon find out that life on the streets of Johannesburg is not all it’s made out to be. 

 

UPS: - VOICER - What you are witnessing is how thousands of illegal border-jumpers enter South Africa. This is one of the many popular crossing points on our porous three hundred kilometre border with Zimbabwe. This one is not far from the Beitbridge border post. It’s not electrified so the barbed wire fence is not much of a deterrent.  It’s estimated that between two and four million Zimbabweans are living in South Africa many of them illegally.  We managed to speak to these two young women before they disappeared into the bush.

 

UPS: - LINDA FLAVIAN - I was from Que Que we just trying to pass the border to come to SA so that we have something to do. We just save the money to give to the guys to help us cross here. And then by the time we find the guys we came here we tried to cross with them the first day we were about to be caught and then we went back to Beit Bridge the second day we tried and that is today and then we tried to succeed we passed through the river and it was hard there by the river. The guys just say “pass pass run run!!! And then there were crocodiles, it was hard.

 

UPS: - NATASHA SIBANDA – We go to the river we paid the boys fifty rand to cross the river.

 

UPS; - VOICER – Did each of you pay fifty rand?

 

UPS: - LINDA FLAVIAN AND NATASHA SIBANDA - Ja

 

UPS: - VOICER - Like most border jumpers, they don’t intend to stay in South Africa permanently.

 

UPS: - LINA FLAVIAN - My intention is to go back when I have money…I’ll be rich showing my friends that I am somebody.

 

PRE -TITLE: …for a better life?

 

UPS: - VOICER - Crossing the border illegally can be hazardous. But for those who can’t afford a visa, risking the river has become the only way to reach the “New Canaan”.

 

UPS: - CALVIN SENGANI; POLICE COMMISSIONER LIMPOPO PROVINCE -Its huge and it’s a big challenge because in a day within twenty four hrs we can arrest around two hundred so that works out towards something towards two thousand per month, it’s huge.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Fence- jumpers are becoming more daring. We found these young men openly crossing in broad daylight. On the South African side a soldier spots the jumpers. Two of them slip away when they realise their friends have walked into a trap. But almost all deportees will soon be back to have another go

 

UPS: - NKOSANA SIBUYI; DEPT HOME AFFAIRS CHIEF DIRECTOR: COMMUNICTION SERVICES - It’s a revolving door syndrome. We have observed that once they have been deported others may decide for some reasons to come back into the country and obviously that is an issue we have to deal with.

 

UPS: - VOICER - This man has the never-ending task of repairing the holes made in the fence by border jumpers.

 

UPS: - WILLIAM TLOU; HANDYMAN - They keep me busy when I come Monday I will find this hole open and many holes open.

 

UPS: -VOICER - Musina, on the South Africa-Zimbabwe border, has become a stopover for many illegal immigrants. Anita Luwish and her friend Fatima Fachi are both blind. Anita is four months pregnant. Sheer desperation and hunger drove them, with their children, across the border into South Africa.

 

UPS: - TRANSLATOR - “They say they came from Harare yesterday, they came through the river, and then a man who was crossing helped them so that they cross the river.

 

UPS – VOICER – Did they have pay him?

 

UPS: - TRANSLATOR – They paid fifty rand for that man. They are saying they did not eat anything since from Harare to Beit Bridge, they just ate maze only. They want their children to go to South Africa they want them to go to school to South Africa.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Not everybody gets into SA illegally. Some make use of visitors visas to get into the country. Hoping for a better future in South Africa is twenty seven year-old Daphne Mashange. She is seven months pregnant.  

 

UPS: - DAPHNE MASHANGE - The problems in Zimbabwe is there is no fuel. If you are going to have the baby and at the hospital they say they have no fuel, it will be a problem for the mother and the baby, because there is no transport and fuel also. I’ve got my passport and a visa, my visa expires on 5 June, this year 2006.I am proud of my country and I will go back for the sake of my mother and the children there because they are waiting for me and looking for me maybe she will come with something.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Anita and Fatima find a room in Musina Township to overnight. They lived in Harare Zimbabwe until recently, when their shack was destroyed as part of President Mugabe’s “Operation Clean Up”.

 

UPS: - DAPHNE MASHANGE – Since that was done they thought of coming here because they do not have anywhere to stay that’s why they decided to go to Johannesburg, because life there is difficult. They don’t have anywhere to stay with these kids.

 

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UPS: - VOICER -The next day Anita, Fatima and their children go to Musina Station. They’re helped by this young man, Bakare. He’s been to Johannesburg before and promises to help them find a place to stay there. Soon they’re on their way destination the city of promise, Johannesburg. Daphne is also on her way to Johannesburg. She doesn’t have any family there and her visa won’t allow her to work. But she hopes to give birth in a South African hospital.

 

UPS: - DAPHNE MASHANGE - I am going to Johannesburg I want to find anything to do for the sake of my baby and for my family in Zimbabwe I want to do a piece job anything that can give me money.

 

UPS: - VOICER - She arrives at noon a day later. She’s heard of an organisation called SAWIMA which offers support to women. It’s an NGO that was started by concerned female refugees living in Johannesburg.   Many Zimbabweans end up here in the offices of SAWIMA. Joyce Dube or Mama Joyce as she’s called, is a founder member. She says life is hard for refugees.

 

UPS: - JOYCE DUBE; SAMIWA - To come to South Africa you must pay a lot of money if you want to cross illegally there are people you must pay people who organise that then you cross the border in South Africa you face the same problem you must pay all the way to your destiny. Life in Johannesburg is very difficult. They think in South Africa they will have jobs better life it is worse. The payment is very low you spend the money paying taxis to go to work but you won’t have extra to buy food so some of them prefer to stay at home.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Mamma Joyce says the pregnant women are not coming into the country for the child support grants.

 

UPS:  - JOYCE DUBE; SAWIMA - They can’t come for a grant because they don’t have ID’s they are not legal in the country how can they apply for a grant, some of them of course they can use other peoples id’s to go to hospital but they cannot use that id for a grant.

 

UPS: -VOICER - Dudu Tshuma is also from Zimbabwe. She’s a qualified nurse and works at SAWIMA as an AIDS advisor.

 

UPS: - SIDUDUZIWE TSHUMA; SAMIWA AIDS CO-ORDINATOR - The basic reason that pregnant women and women with children come her is to seek health facilities, because it is very difficult to access those facilities in Zimbabwe.

UPS: - NKOSANA SIBUYI; DEPT HOME AFFAIRS CHIEF DIRECTOR: COMMUNICTION SERVICES - The perception that perhaps we need to correct is that if pregnant women decide to come and give birth in our own country, that does not necessarily or automatically make their children South Africans, they can come and give birth in our country as long as they come legally but that will not in any way make their children South Africans. All what the department will do will just give them a note which will indicate that the child was born in this particular hospital on this particular day and this is not a reflection or a confirmation of their citizenship in South Africa in any way.

 

UPS: - VOICER - But in the past Special Assignment has shown how easy it is for illegal immigrants to buy fake IDs and to get access to welfare grants. Here a Zimbabwean woman is buying the necessary documents from a Home Affairs official in Johannesburg. After a fifteen hour journey, Anita and Fatima arrive in Johannesburg.  They’ve found accommodation in a building in the centre of the city. Others are not so lucky. This is the reality on the streets of the City of Gold for many desperate, hungry, homeless people. Some have fled the misery of their own countries. A few find a place to sleep here at the Central Methodist Church.

 

UPS: - RICHARD NYAKARASHI; ZIMBABWE REFUGEE - Close to two hundred people sleep here during the night they live here with everything, their clothes.

 

UPS: - BISHOP PAUL VERRYN; CENTRAL METHODIST CHURCH - The church has opened its doors for more than ten years for homeless people and obviously in recent years, very recent years the problem has escalated particularly with asylum seekers and refugees coming into the country.

 

UPS: - RICHARD NYAKARASHI; ZIMBABWE REFUGEE - Most of them during the day they are out there looking for a living and they come here in the evening to sleep.

 

UPS: - BISHOP PAUL VERRYN; CENTRAL METHODIST CHURCH - There is a very specific process that people go through when people come into the building. I interview each person, in some case not all cases we will try to provide some kind of accommodation.

 

UPS: - RICHARD NYAKARASHI; ZIMBABWE REFUGEE - Pregnant women and children are some of them are school going age some of them are crèche going age some of them do attend the crèche that is downstairs

 

UPS: - BISHOP PAUL VERRYN; CENTRAL METHODIST CHURCH – Pregnant women find themselves in a particularly vulnerable place. There are also women with very small children to try and get your life together and even when you had your baby you know the initial food not all mothers can breast feed some of that stuff is very, very expensive

 

 

 

AD BREAK 2

 

UPS: - VOICER - For many starving Zimbabweans the only alternative is to cross the crocodile- infested Limpopo River. Food Aid organisations say more than four million Zimbabweans are in need of help.

 

UPS: - LUIS CLEMENS; WORLD FOOD PROGRAM – The situation of hungry Zimbabweans is enormous in this area we are looking at  millions and millions of people who do not have enough to feed themselves this year.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Yet those that have fled this crisis are not considered refugees because there is no war. 

 

UPS: - DR LOREN LANDAU; FORCED MIGRATION STUDIES: WITS - There are new groups coming in as a result of the instability and the crisis in Zimbabwe some of those may be considered economic migrants but clearly the conditions in Zimbabwe now justify considering them refugees, many of those people consider themselves refugees and are seeking asylum in South Africa although many of them are have difficulty in getting the protection from the South Africa state because of admin problems, hostility and a doubt that the conditions in Zimbabwe are bad enough to justify them coming here.

 

UPS: - NKOSANA SIBUYI; HOME AFFAIRS CHIEF DIR: COMMUNICATION SERVICES - Once you have applied for asylum permit you obviously have to come back to the department and also there will be some few questions will be posed. On the basis of the responses a determination will be made whether or not those people deserve to be given an asylum permit in that regard

 

UPS: - EMMANUEL NYAKARASHI; REFUGEE MINISTRIES - The current concern is the issue of access to asylum process in South Africa in general if you look at the backlog that the dept has got in a sense it has become a handicap to many people trying to access the process.

 

UPS: - DR LOREN LANDAU; FORCED MIGRATION STUDIES: WITS – There is simply in access to the system if you want to apply for asylum people in winter they are sleeping outside in Pretoria they are trying  to get access to the offices. Now we hear that they being pepper sprayed to try to keep them in line outside the offices in Rossetenville you can say this is an effective response from the state

 

UPS: - VOICER - Home Affairs say they are busy with a project to deal with the backlog of asylum- seekers. But until the, there is only one office for asylum seekers in Johannesburg and its only open on Saturdays. Refugees, mostly from Zimbabwe, camp out all night waiting for the office to open. The day we were trying to film the long lines, we were confronted by aggressive security personnel. We were also prevented from talking to people queuing there. We retreat to a nearby coffee shop where the manager tells us about the Home Affairs corruption that he has witnessed.

 

UPS: - SEAN DUVENAGE; COFFEE SHOP MANAGER -The refugees would come and sit at our tables and one of the officials would arrive papers under his arm and five ten minutes later he would walk out no papers but his pockets bulging with money.

 

UPS: - NKOSANA SIBUYI; DEPT HOME AFFAIRS CHIEF DIRECTOR: COMMUNICTION SERVICES - corruption is a cancer it is a virus that needs to be eradicated and in the vent that this issue of corruption is brought to our department through our the correct channels we will be able to deal with it quite decisively as the department. 

 

UPS: - VOICER - Without asylum-papers illegal immigrants are exposed to all sorts of problems - including police harassment. Recently SAWIMA led a march to the Dept of Safety and Security. They were protesting the ill-treatment of Zimbabweans by police.

 

UPS: - DR LOREN LANDAU; FORCED MIGRATION STUDIES: WITS – the problems I see with immigrants are not so much the immigrants per se but how the SA state and the SA people are responding to immigrants. By not providing them legal protection, by not allowing them to get access to housing, to schools, to health care, then were are creating a threat if you cant get a job how else are you going to get money than to steal. If you cant get housing you are going to live in squatter settlements you are going to invade houses, these sort of things. If you don’t get access to health care, if you get sick you are going to get people sick around you, and that’s going to be a problem.

 

UPS: - VOICER - A week after Anita and Fatima arrived we found them begging on a street corner near Constitution Hill.

 

UPS: - TRANSLATOR – She says it is better than in Zimbabwe, because she makes more money this side. She says she made forty five rand. She saying she’s got headache and toothache and her feet is also sore. She says she made forty rand today.

 

UPS: - VOICER - We follow them home. They’re living with other blind Zimbabweans and their handlers… on the seventh floor of a high-rise block.

 

UPS: - TRANSLATOR – She is saying its not fine where they are staying the stay twenty in one room and they cant sleep properly.

 

USP: - VOICER - There is no proper sanitation and the lifts stopped working long ago. Everyone, including children, pays seven rand a day. We were asked not to film the room.

 

UPS: - SIDUDUZIWE  TSHUMA; SAMIWA AIDS CO-ORDINATOR - approximately ten in there now I am not sure but I think approximately ten but maybe more than that  because some have not come back from their begging places They don’t want to be on television or on camera I think they are scared.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Daphne found a place to stay through Mama Joyce and she’s now eight months pregnant. She is becoming increasingly worried about the future.

 

UPS: -DAPHNE MASHANGE - The main problem is where I’m staying is a nice place but the problem is I cannot afford to pay rent. I feel like fainting my legs are swollen. The main thing that I want is a piece job for the sake of my preparation for my baby. If I can get piece job for the prep for my baby.

 

UPS: - DR LOREN LANDAU; FORCED MIGRATION STUDIES: WITS – One of the things we need to reconsider around the immigration law is whether to start granting short term work seeker visas or trader visas which would take the burden off the asylum process. People would come in legally they could stay for a short period they could do their business and they could go home. Migrant are always going to come here there is no way to stop them. I think what is really at stake here is whether SA can develop effective ways in managing migration finding ways to stop corruption, violence discrimination, that is now associated with immigration

 

UPS: - BISHOP PAUL VERRYN; CENTRAL METHODIST CHURCH - I also think it an opportunity for us in one way or another to say thank you to Africa for what they did. For us for many years in providing education in providing home, in providing dignity and in actual fact even providing hope when it was very dark.

 

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Credits

Reporter

Fenley

Production Company

SABC