Approximate 3 million Zimbabweans live in South Africa ? running away from President Mugabe’s reign of terror and collapsing economy. On one hand, South Africans have become violent towards Zimbabweans with reports of police here brutalizing those arrested for working illegal.
The Zimbabwean economy has been in tatters under President Mugabe’s stewardwiship with the unemployment rate estimated at 80 percent. Inflation has surpassed an unprecedented 100 percent mark, making Zimbabwe the fastest shierinking economy outside a war zone.
Unfortunately, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is failing to advocate for Zimbabweans’ right to protection under international standards and South African domestic legislation. UNHCR has not provided sufficient support to the Government of South Africa in defining and implementing its refugee policy towards Zimbabweans.
Furthermore, UNHCR staff in South Africa downplay the political crisis in Zimbabwe and show a marked tendency to dismiss the legitimacy of Zimbabweans’ overall case for asylum, making a minimal effort to provide direct protection.
The integrity of a black Zimbabwean has plunged to lowest levels – lower than during Ian Smith’s racist Rhodesian government – it is as though black Zimbabweans are not fully-paid up members of the human race.
The abuses perpetrated against poverty-ravaged Zimbabweans by South African police, citizens and employers now calls for both diplomatic and Human Rights intervention – to bring about the dignity of mankind. There is no civilisation here.
Responding to recent church police raid of Zimbabweans here, Methodist Bishop Paul Verryn said police had acted irresponsibly, and could have avoided storming the grounds with pepper spray and dogs.
Bishop Verryn and his staff have filed complaints with the South African police oversight body, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), regarding police behaviour during and since the raid, claiming that “What started at the church has not stopped.”
He alleged that those arrested continue to be beaten and taunted by police, and pleas for the police to retrieve immigration papers from the church have been ignored.
There were also reports from South Africa’s Legal Resource Centre (LRC) that police denied those arrested access to lawyers.
First, Zimbabweans are lured into the construction industry by unscrupulous individuals and employers knowing their status. After the job has been “perfectly” done, the employers simply tell them to go away unpaid.
In most cases to avoid paying out for labour, the employers simple call in the police upon completion of the contract. The next thing the Zimbabweans are rounded up and dispatched to Lindela Centre for deportation to Zimbabwe without even a penny. They are then deported in a state of shock and wretchedness. I want to argue that a human being treated in such a manner usually turns out to dangerous in future. Such a rough and abusive treatment of a man by man breeds criminals. The animal instinct within a victim of such an abuse is triggered.
There are also revelations of scores of black Zimbabweans girls being forced to submit into sex with ordinary police officers as a means of paying for their freedom. Most of these police officers demanding payment in the form of sex are HIV positive – they shun using condoms. According to official statistics, South Africa has the highest problem of HIV virus in the world with more than 5 million people infected.
Among these women – there are those so traumatised by the abuses here such that, some of them have surrendered their lives and resorted to prostitution in nightclubs where they market their bodies – charging three Rands for short-time sexual encounters.
One of the women said at times she is bedded by 20 different men per day retiring for the night with more than 60 Rands.
In every street in Johannesburg there is a Zimbabwean. Among these dislocated Zimbabweans there are the disabled and the blind – begging for the South African Rand in the streets of Johannesburg.
There are also Zimbabwean vendors in Johannesburg’s most dangerous and busiest roads such as Bree and Nord roads. They sell different sorts of wares ranging from Springboks T-shirts, hats and various South African souvenirs. They speak in both Shona and Ndebele.
Last week, on Wednesday, I was in the company of my South African based friend, Nickson Sibanda, we drove along Bree road towards Fourways suburb on our way to pick-up journalist and former Sunday News sports editor Phathisani Moyo.
Just before we turned into Fourways suburb we stopped on the traffic lights. Within the blink of an eye our car was besieged by up to six touting Zimbabweans pleading with us to buy their wares.
Four of these road vendors were Shonas and two were Ndebeles – all in South Africa on a common cause. The risks of eking-out a living on South Africa’s busiest roads seem to be a secondary issue to them. Once the traffic lights go red signaling a stop, they jump into the centre of road zig-zagging their way car by car. What would shock first time visitors in Johannesburg is seeing a wheel chair-bound Zimbabwean vendor rolling into the busy traffic here and mumbling in Zulu, but clearly in a Zimbabwean accent pleading with motorist to buy his Springboks shirts.
One of the Zimbabwean vendors who identified himself as Itai, said life was “worse than hell” to be Zimbabwean in South Africa, he said before pleading with us to spare him a five Rand coin. “I have nowhere to go, the only thing is to do in this country is to sell wares because if you get a job the employer will call the police upon completion of the job to avoid paying out wages. On one hand, some of my friends have become thieves and many of of them have are either dead or in prison,” he said.
Many Zimbabweans are rotting in maximum prisons such as Sun City, John Foster, New Lock in Rastenburg North West – and many have died in those prisons without informing their relatives back in Zimbabwe. Recently, a Bulawayo man and former member of Zimbabwe National Army Dumisani Ndimande died at Sun City prison.
Itai said one of his vending-mates along Berea Road was last month run over by a speeding car being driven by hijackers. “He died instantly and I don’t think his parents back in Zim we ever told about his death. I cannot contact his parents as well because I don’t know them at all, so he was given a pauper’s burial here,” he said.
Perhaps the most devastating story about Zimbabweans here is that highly qualified teachers such as mathematics and science teachers work as waitresses because of their illegal status in the country. Many qualified and experienced Zimbabwean teachers work as garden boys as well. There are also reports of Zimbabwean teachers working as grass cutters for white farmers near KwaNdebele.
A Zimbabwean working as a restaurant manager in Rivonia who requested anonymity said: “One of my work-mates who is junior to me is a former examination officer at the Bulawayo Polytechnic. His job is just being a waitress”.
Another Zimbabwean teacher at the same restaurant, who also declined identity, said she used to teach at Mpopoma High School. “Life was tough for me in Zimbabwe. I had to leave the country for greener pastures but the only job I found myself doing was to be a waitress”.
“The sad thing is that we have no voice and we are at the mercy of our Indian employer here because he knows we don’t have valid papers to be working here hence he takes advantage of our status. If he decides not to pay us or to make some deductions from our salaries its all at his discretion,” she said tearfully.
“We used to be 18 Zimbabweans working at this restaurant but three of them were arrested and deported after they queried deductions from their wages.What happens is – employers do have concessions with police. When, as a Zimbabwean you happen to challenge your treatment by the employer, he simply calls in police and the next thing you are taken to Lindela centre awaiting deportation,” she said.
Zimbabweans working in food industry here have resorted to stealing food in order to feed up to five police officers as a means of buying their freedom.”During lunch time you find a group of police officers flocking inrestaurants where there are Zimbabweans to have free lunch. If you ignore them the next thing you are bundled into a police car for deportation,” she said.
The source said his brother was picked up by police at Hilbrow who demanded 200 Rands for his release. He had to pay for his freedom. If they arrest a “good-looking” woman there is an option of sex with one or two of the arresting officers. But if the woman is not good-looking she has to pay the bribe like men.
“What is surprising is that there are many white Zimbabweans who crossed into the country but they all had no problems in getting papers here.Perhaps the most traumatising experience was last week when we were stopped along Klairm road when I was traveling from work. The police stopped us, first they asked me what tribe I was, I said I was a South African coloured, so they simply abandoned me a turned to the next person,” she said.
“I have never heard of a single case whereby a white Zimbabwean was stopped on the streets and asked to produce identity yet we are all victims of Robert Mugabe,” he said.
Meanwhile the African Union has launched investigations into the alleged rampant abuse of Zimbabwean refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa and Botswana, described as “xenophobic and hostile”. The decision follows concerns raised by human rights groups in the region
to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) meeting in Brazzaville (Congo) recently. The reports were submitted by the Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA) and the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF). They said South Africa and Botswana’s refusal to treat Zimbabweanimmigrants flooding the two countries as refugees fuelled the abuse.
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