By: Liza Gilhuly
On Thursday, June 18th, SAMGI helped put together a discussion on how best to aid refugees who are currently in South Africa. SAMGI partnered with the Democratic Governance and Rights Units (DGRU) and the United Nations Refugee Commission (UNHCR). SAMGI also made it a priority to bring refugees themselves to the conference, so they could both learn about the organizations present and express their opinion on the current situation of refugees in South Africa.
Currently, these refugees are not living in refugee camps but what the UNHCR calls “safety zones”. Because these establishments are not actual refugee camps, they lack many facilities and materials that are crucial to the well-being of the refugees, such as proper bathrooms, schools, and in some cases electricity. Because there is little education, women do not learn about sexual health, including HIV/AIDS and contraception. There is also a higher incidence of domestic violence inside the camps.
The men, women and children living at these safety zones feel stuck. They do not want to leave and face more xenophobic violence, yet they cannot prosper in their current situation and the UNHCR does not want to accommodate them for a prolonged period of time. These refugees have no where else to go, returning to their native countries would also be extremely dangerous. This puts both the UNHCR and the refugees in a very stressful position, since no one wants to budge.
There are several things that can be done to work on solving this dilemma. The UNHCR could focus on making the safety zones more hospitable and allowing refugees a longer, but still limited, amount of time to stay. The UNHCR also needs to provide some type of education to the residents of these camps, which would help decrease the domestic violence and unsafe sex. South Africa must work on addressing xenophobic violence as well, as this is the root problem of the refugees refusing to leave the safety zones.
These are some of the topics discussed at the conference and SAMGI is doing it’s best to learn more about the refugees living in South Africa and how to help them leave these camps in a safe manner.
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