The FMSP is an independent, interdisciplinary and internationally engaged Africa-based centre of excellence for research and teaching that shapes global discourse on human mobility, development and social transformation.

APPLICATIONS FOR POST GRADUATE STUDIES AT FMSP ARE NOW OPEN. THE CLOSING DATE IS THE 31st OF AUGUST 2010. 

Please note that we are in the process of adding content so many areas of the site are incomplete. If you can't find something, please contact us at info@migration.org.za

Features

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Migration Issue Brief 4: Human Trafficking & Migration

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This fact sheet is a quick reference guide regarding South Africa’s approach towards human trafficking. The note discusses the legal definitions of trafficking and the impact of the 2010 World Cup on the way practitioners and the public understand the concept of trafficking.
 

Migration Issue Brief 3: 'Xenophobia': Violence against Foreign Nationals and other ‘Outsiders’ in Contemporary South Africa

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This Migration Issue Brief is a concise and accessible summary of the Forced Migration Studies Programme’s research findings regarding the causes and triggers of violence against foreign nationals and other ‘outsiders’ in South Africa. The FMSP’s Migration Issue Briefs are a resource for practitioners and the media.

Population Movements in and to South Africa

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This fact sheet is a quick reference guide regarding South Africa’s migration management policies and a selection of key challenges facing the country with regard to population movement. The note discusses internal migration and urbanisation as well as cross border movements into South Africa.

Lost in the Vortex: Irregularities in the Detention and Deportation of Non-Nationals in South Africa

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The Lindela Detention Centre, located approximately 40 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg in Krugersdorp, is a holding facility for the temporary detention of ‘illegal foreigners’ while they await deportation. The centre was established under the Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA) authority to detain and deport illegal foreigners, found in the Immigration Act (No.

May 2008 Violence Against Foreign Nationals in South Africa: Understanding Causes and Evaluating Responses

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From 11th to 26th May 2008, foreign nationals were attacked in at least 135 locations in various parts of
South Africa (Bekker, at al, 2009). This led to at least 62 deaths, over a hundred thousand people
displaced, and millions of Rands of damage and loss of property. The May 2008 violence stimulated a

La Migration et la Nouvelle Ville Africaine

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L’enquête sur la migration et la nouvelle ville africaine, que nous appellerons, dans la suite du document, l’enquête Villes africaines, trouve son origine dans le questionnement de chercheurs européens, américains et africains sur les transformations des villes africaines apportées par les migrants, cette « globalisation par le bas » &ag

Protection and Pragmatism: Addressing Administrative Failures in South Africa’s Refugee Status Determination Decisions

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This report analyses the quality of status determination decisions issued at South Africa’s permanent refugee reception offices.

Migrant Mobilisation: Structure and Strategies in Claiming Rights in South Africa and Nairobi

This report documents individual and collective mobilisation for migrants’ rights in South Africa and Nairobi and contains six sections. After a short introduction, section two reviews the literature on migrant mobilisation. Access to resources, social networks and political opportunities all play a key role in migrant mobilisation.

Migration Issue Brief 2: Violence, Labour and the Displacement of Zimbabweans in De Doorns, Western Cape

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This policy brief provides a summarised analysis of causal factors, police responses and solutions adopted and/or proposed in relation to this violence. For assessments of the humanitarian support provided to the displaced, see regular situation reports by UNHCR and CoRMSA.

Zimbabwean Migration into Southern Africa: New Trends and Responses

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The economic and political collapse of Zimbabwe has generated unprecedented outward migration to Southern African countries. Even as stability gradually returns in Zimbabwe, the humanitarian crises facing its diaspora and the potential for further waves of migration remain high.

One Burden Too Many? A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Immigration Policing in Gauteng

South African policing stands at a critical juncture. The police have negotiated more than a decade of democratic change. Still, there is growing uncertainty about whether the South African Police Service (SAPS) remains capable of meeting the challenges of building an open democratic society.

For Better Implementation of Migrant Children’s Rights in South Africa

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This report outlines the situation facing children who migrate across international borders to South Africa. The report begins by outlining the policy framework that should guide migrant children’s access to rights in South Africa. This section points to a well developed legal and policy framework for securing the rights of migrant children regardless of their documentation.

Towards Tolerance, Law and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa

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Although violence against foreign nationals and other ‘outsiders’ has been a long-standing feature of post-Apartheid South Africa, the intensity and scale of the May 2008 attacks were extraordinary. What started off as an isolated incidence of anti-foreigner violence in Alexandra on 11 May, quickly spread to other townships and informal settlements across the country. After two weeks and the deployment of the Army, the violence subsided. In its wake, 62 people, including 21 South Africans, were dead; at least 670 wounded; dozens of women raped; and at least 100 000 persons displaced and property worth of millions of Rand looted, destroyed or seized by local residents and leaders.

National Survey of the Refugee Reception and Status Determination System in South Africa

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This report summarises data that was gathered over a period of eight months at five of South Africa’s permanent refugee reception offices (Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Port Elizabeth), as well as the satellite offices in Johannesburg and Durban that were set up as part of the Backlog Project.1 The data focuses on 1) asylum seeker experiences in accessing the reception offices and lodging their asylum claims, 2) their interactions inside the reception offices, and 3) the difficulties they experience as a result of the problems with access and service delivery. Applicants were asked a series of questions in the following areas:

News

FMSP staff regularly contribute to the public discourse on migration, as field researchers and scholars.
23 August 2010

A recent study of township informal trade suggests that in the past few years an entrepreneurial revolution of sorts has revived the spaza shop, to the extent that the demise of the owner-managed township house shop, under the onslaught of the retail giants, Shoprite and Pick n Pay, suddenly looks less certain now.

23 August 2010

Bright Magomora took no chances when a crowd gathered outside his small shop, hammering on the walls with sticks and shouting that he should go home to Zimbabwe.

“I ran away,” says Mr Magomora, who had spent five years in the South African shanty town of Kya Sands, north of Johannesburg. “They wanted to beat me up or kill me, saying that we foreigners should go back to our place.

7 August 2010

Anti-foreigner violence is grabbing the headlines again in South Africa after what seemed to be a break during the World Cup.

Immigrants have fled their homes and have left the country, just as they did during the anti-immigrant violence of 2008, which left more than 60 people dead.

30 July 2010

"The mysterious incompatibility of bias and brigandry" sums up the government's curious responses to the current xenophobic violence.

29 July 2010

CAPE TOWN—Just past midnight, more than a dozen men poured out of the two pickup trucks that pulled up outside of Carlos Mambosassa’s wooden shack in Khayelitsha Township, near Cape Town. Wakened by the loud knock on the door, he says, he faced them on his doorstep.

“They tell me: ‘You’re from Zimbabwe, you have to go back to your place.