A three-member team of civil rights leaders from various organisations recently visited the area on a fact finding mission, after receiving various allegations of corruption and physical abuse by Home Affairs officials receiving and processing applications. The Solidarity Peace Trust prepared a report detailing the abuses.
The findings of the report have also been confirmed by Lawyers for Human Rights, which has since made a court appeal for the re-opening of the Johannesburg’s TIRRO centre to ease congestion at the only centre now remaining in Gauteng province.
Whipping the crowd
Among various forms of abuse, the civil rights leaders say that they witnessed whip-wielding crowd controllers beating up asylum seekers. Some of the crowd controllers claimed that they were members of the South African police, even though they were not in uniform and did not show their identity documents.
“Touts were openly soliciting for R150 in order to take people from back of the line to the font and they said they were working with the police (crowd controllers), while one crowd controller said he is SAPS but refused to be photographed with his whip or in action beating asylum seekers,” read the SPT report.
“There was a lot of movement of asylum seekers from the back of the line to the front and it was clearly facilitated by touts and crowd controllers/police. Asylum seekers seemed powerless to challenge the movements, which led to those who slept at Marabastad being displaced by those who would have paid the bribes. Nobody challenged the beatings with whips-it appeared normal and routine to them.”
Most asylum seekers interviewed alleged that their ordeal had dragged on for more than a week because they did not have money to pay bribes.
A miserable life
“The rights of people coming into South Africa seeking protection are being trampled upon at Marabastad,” reads a part of the report. “The fact that people are served on the basis of who can pay a bribe makes life miserable for the majority of asylum seekers who cannot pay the bribes. Vulnerable people are made to practically camp for days at Marabastad without food, water and Sanitation facilities.”
The team, which spoke to asylum seekers who have been at Marabastad since August 20, 2011, described the situation as the centre as “sad and tragic”.
“These people are routinely at the front of the line, then they are displaced and put at the back in favour of those who pay bribes,” continued the report, signed by the SPT’s, Reason Machengere.
“They endure hunger, cold weather, and thirst, lack of bathing facilities and beatings by crowd controllers as they are forced to give way for those who pay bribes.”
United front
Among other actions, the three organisations: Peace Action, Solidarity Peace Trust, and the Zimbabwe Youth Wing, recommended a united front among other human rights organizations, which will see them confront the authorities at Marabastad.
“There is need for civil society organisations to seriously lobby for the opening of another centre in JHB to ease pressure at Marabastad,” said the organisations.
Marabastad became very congested after the decision by the Department of Home Affairs to close Crown Mines in Johannesburg in May.
Human Rights organisations have continued to receive complaints of corruption, beatings and other forms of abuse from asylum seekers, leading to the three organizations’ decision to send representatives on a fact finding mission.
The SA Home Affairs Department had not responded to questions emailed to them by The Zimbabwean at the time of going to print.
Post published in: News