Wits University - Refugee Law Clinic

Wits University is South Africa's main English-speaking university.  It is situated in the suburb of Braamfontein, to the north-west of the CBD.  The grounds of the university are large, spread over East and West campuses, with a combination of grand, stately old buildings and hideous 1970s extensions, much like many Australian universities.  The grounds are very green, peppered with public art, and surrounded by high, spiked fences and security guards at each entrance.  Getting in here is as much a physical challenge as it is an academic one.

For my three week visit I am based at the Wits Law Clinic, a predominantly student-run legal clinic providing legal advice and representation on a wide range of legal matters - including refugee law, family law, forced evictions, property and tort (the head of the tort law department tells me most of their cases are against the police).  All of the law students at Wits are required to spend the final year of their course assisting in one of the clinic's areas of practice, and a few will go on to work here as Candidate Attorneys (a bit like articles, a year of practical experience that graduates must do to be admitted to practice).  My main hosts here at the clinic are Daven, the head of the Refugee Law Unit, and Ayesha, one of its Candidate Attorneys.  Both have been exceedingly welcoming, assuring me that now I have friends in South Africa I have nothing to worry about.

Every Monday the Refugee Law unit runs a two-hour legal clinic, where asylum seekers and refugees come to seek legal advice.  The clinic assists people not only with their applications for asylum, but with the many other legal barriers faced by refugees in South Africa - difficulties obtaining permits, identity cards, documents that will allow them to travel, and access to education and work.  Daven tells me that much of the work of the clinic is taken up with going to court to get orders compelling DHA (the Department of Home Affairs, responsible for dealing with refugee affairs) to do something it should have done already.  When DHA still refuses to act on the court order, the clinic returns to court to launch contempt proceedings.  Then, sometimes, something gets done.  In fact, this strategy resulted in a big win for the clinic recently, when it received an order compelling the government to start issuing South African travel documents (similar to a passport).  The right of recognised refugees to a travel document is guaranteed by the South African Refugees Act and the Immigration Act, but DHA has been refusing to issue them for some three years or so.  The impact of the order is huge - it means, for example, that a young Congolese client of the clinic, whose two children went missing when she fled her home, can now return to the DRC to search for them, without losing her refugee status and being refused re-entry into South Africa.

Today I accompanied Ayesha on her clinic duties.  The clinic is quiet at the moment, as the students who usually staff it are yet to arrive back from the summer break.  Incredibly, potential clients seem to know this and so the queue for assistance is not long.  Ayesha warned me that I would see a 'firmer' side of her at the clinic, and she was not wrong.  She was adept at pushing through the emotional stories presented to her to identify the kernel of the legal problem each story entailed, and swift and direct in telling asylum seekers and refugees what she could, and could not, do for them.  She did not hesitate to chastise her clients for failing to renew their permits in time and forgetting to bring her the documents she had requested.  She says: if a doctor tells you not to eat before surgery, you don't eat and then turn up and expect the doctor to work miracles.

But trying to do the right thing is only half the picture in South Africa.  One woman who attended today's clinic had been to the DHA office several times in the last few months to renew her asylum seeker permit, a temporary permit that allows an asylum seeker to remain lawfully in South Africa until his or her claim for refugee status has been decided.  Each time she arrived at the office she was told to come back tomorrow, or next week, or next month.  As this went on, her current permit expired.  The last time she tried to renew it she was told that as her permit had expired she would have to pay a fine of 3000 rand (about AU$320), money she does not have, before it could be renewed.  Ayesha explains to the woman that she needs proof of the fine - she needs to know whether it is a real fine, or just a corrupt official demanding a bribe.  Until she knows, there is little she can do, and so the young woman remains unlawfully in the country and subject to arrest and deportation at any time.

The final client for the day was another woman from the DRC - DRC nationals make up about 90% of the clinic's clients at the moment, due to the continuing and ruthless dictatorship of Joseph Kabila.  This woman came to South Africa with her children after her husband was killed and Ayesha is helping her to appeal against DHA's decision to refuse her refugee status.  At the end of the appointment the young woman hugs Ayesha, and tells her not to worry; God will look after them and make the imigration officials good and in the end everything will be ok.

Wits Law Clinic - a student-run legal clinic providing free
legal advice on refugee law, family law, property, evictions
and tort matters.

Who is a refugee in Africa? A discussion over coffee.

44 Stanley Avenue - coffee haven

My first South African latte

After my first morning out in central Jo'burg I spent the afternoon closer to home (my hotel).  44 Stanley Avenue is a  collection of old industrial buildings that have been converted into a mega-posh precinct of cafes, restaurants, shops and studies.  It's a little bit like Beijing's 798 art district, but smaller, posher and with less art and more very, very expensive shops.  The website proclaims: 'The synergy of creative souls, aloes, 1930s architecture and deliciously unique products... make for an ambience that is as refreshing as it is quintessentially Johannesburg.'  Well refreshing it certainly was - it was an oasis of calm compared to the fairly hectic central business district.  But it felt worlds away from from anything else I had experienced of Johannesburg so far.

Wavering between unease at the conspicuously gentile vibe and elation at finding so many cafes in one place, I found a seat in Bean There - a fair trade coffee roastery tucked away in the corner of the precinct - and ordered a latte.  I settled in with some readings about the African Union and my Graham Greene novel, thinking: aha, now this is what doing a PhD is all about - hanging it in cafes, drinking coffee and reading...

My latte arrived in a bowl (hooray!) and the barista asked me about the article I was reading.  When I explained to him that I was doing a PhD in African refugee law, he introduced himself as a refugee from Zimbabwe, and took out the refugee ID card he had been issued a few years ago to show me.  He explained to me that he didn't really use it any more - last year the government held a special amnesty for Zimbabweans and, being a teacher in Zimbabwe, my barista had received a two-year work permit allowing him to live and work in the country until the end of 2013.  He also explained to me that in fact he is not really a refugee at all, that he only applied for refugee status because there is no other way to stay in South Africa.

This is a common criticism of the asylum system in South Africa.  The country as a whole, and Johannesburg in particular, is perceived as the land of opportunity - offering better work and financial prospects than just about anywhere else on the continent.  But the lack of immigration options for people coming here from other African countries means that that people just seeking a better life for themselves - 'economic migrants' - are forced into the asylum queue, pushing out those who are genuinely in need of protection.  This distinction between refugees on the one hand, and economic migrants on the other, is of course not particular to South Africa, but it is exceptionally strong here.  My barista described himself as an 'economic refugee'.

All of this is particularly interesting to me, as the focus of my PhD research is on the very meaning of the term 'refugee' in Africa, or more particularly, in African law.  Unlike the rest of the world, where the 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person at risk of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, Africa has its own regional Refugee Convention, and its own definition of a refugee.  The 1969 African Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who is compelled to leave their home owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order.

The African refugee definition is said to be much broader than the international 1951 definition.  In particular, it is thought to provide refugee status and protection to persons fleeing more generalised risks of harm, such as civil war or widespread human rights abuses.  Such persons are routinely denied refugee protection under the 1951 definition, because the risk of harm they face is a general one, applying for example to anyone unlucky enough to be caught up in a war zone, and not the result of their being individually targeted.  Refugee advocates (at least outside of Africa) routinely cite the African refugee definition as more generous, more reflective of the reasons that people are forced to flee their homes and an example that ought to be followed elsewhere. But despite the common belief in the expansive nature of the African refugee definition, it is very difficult to pin down with any precision just how far its meaning extends.

This is the purpose of my PhD - to try and articulate, with more clarity and rigour than has been done to date, the legal meaning of the term 'refugee' in Africa.  Of course, being only one year in I am yet to draw any firm conclusions on the matter.  But if there is one country that would seem to me to have faced events seriously disturbing public order in recent years, it is Zimbabwe - and presumably someone in South African officialdom thought so too when my barista was granted refugee status.

There are many reasons why a person might want to avoid describing themselves as a refugee.  Labels are powerful, and I have met many refugees who evade the term ascribed to them by law and by society.  The very category that protects people from being returned to countries where they face harm, frequently excludes them from the community in which they must try to make a new home.  Nevertheless, it surprised me to hear a Zimbabwean man declare with such certainty that, like most Zimbabweans in South Africa, he is not a refugee at all.

The process of seeking asylum in South Africa can take years, during which people are frequently denied the right to work or study, and even those who are accepted by the government as refugees are issued with initial two year permits, after which they can apply for an extension of another two years.  Asylum seekers are commonly viewed as illegal immigrants and face harassment and even arrest if they fail to produce the 'correct' documentation.  My barista is one of the lucky ones - he has his ID card and the right to earn a living.  I ask him what he will do when his work permit expires in two years - he says: Who knows? I will wait and see what the government decides.

Johannesburg

By the time I arrived in Johannesburg, I had heard so many tales of muggings, carjackings and hold ups that I expected to be pounced on by masked bandits the moment I exited customs.  Against that background, my arrival was somewhat of an anti-climax.  Instead, I just found Solomon, the driver I had booked to pick me up, waiting patiently in the very sedate arrivals hall and holding a piece of paper bearing my name.

Probably the scariest thing I saw on my trip into town from the airport was the clouds.  Thunder rumbled from behind big, jagged, black clouds which sat just above the Johannesburg skyline, with an eery, silver light filling the gap between them and the horizon.  In this gap was the silhouette of a few of Johannesburg's tallest buildings (on the whole it is a fairly low city) and the Hillbrow tower (which I recognised only because Hillbrow has the dubitable honour of being Jo'burg's most dangerous suburb).  Arriving in the late afternoon meant the traffic was bad, which gave me time to take in the surroundings - people, cars, rubbish, more people - as we drove through the city to my hotel.

The next day, after a 12 hour sleep, I had arranged with Solomon to head into town for a few hours, lest I spend the whole day sitting in my hotel room too scared to leave.  I walked over Nelson Mandela Bridge, visited the Africa Museum and went to the top of the Carlton Tower - at fifty stories, the tallest building in Africa (apparently).  Braving the streets for the first time, I was struck first by how few white people there are on the streets of Jo'burg.  I have been told this is a hangover from the post-apartheid fear of the 'black peril', which saw the mass exodus of businesses from the CBD in the mid-late 1990s.  It is only in recent years that the city has begun to recover, as the result of massive rejuvenation efforts.  But, unsurprisingly perhaps, its reputation is taking some time to catch up.  In any case, noone paid much attention to me and I certainly I saw nothing on my first trip out to make me nervous, but there's nothing like the company of a local to give you courage, and I did keep my hands pretty close to my pockets nonetheless.

My tour ended with a trip to the Pick'n'pay, to get some supplies for my hotel cupboard - this time Solomon waited outside, while I ventured inside to do my shopping by myself.  My safety plan in any new place has always been to look like a local.  Keep a purposive expression, walk like you have somewhere to go, and at all times look like you know what you are doing.  So I put this plan into effect, strutting up and down the aisled filling my basket like a pro.  It was a textbook performance, right up until the end, when the woman ahead of me in the check-out queue politely pointed out that the bananas and nectarines in my pile should have been weighed and priced back in the produce section, and then insisted that she would mind my spot while I went back to remedy my mistake (I was perfectly happy to just leave them behind).  By the time I ran the length of the supermarket to the produce section, got lost trying to find the weighing counter, got in trouble for not having my bananas in a plastic bag, and returned to the expanding queue of impatient customers, my street cred was well and truly shattered.

So that was the morning of Day 1 in Johannesburg.  The afternoon was quite different, spent doing my very favourite thing in the world - sitting in a cafe.  But I think that deserves its own blog entry...

Nelson Mandela Bridge - built to join the suburbs of Braamfontein
and Newtown and opened in 2003 by Nelson Mandela himself 

The Africa Museum - sadly I think the building itself was the highlight

Street art in the city - there are apparently some 1500 or so of these head carvings around Newtown
and the CBD, part of the government's plan to make Johannesburg the world's largest art gallery

Me on the Top of Africa

The offending bananas

Going to Africa

The Top of Africa (Carlton Tower, Johannesburg)

Arrived Johannesburg.

Well the flight might have been a mere 13 hours, but it definitely took me longer than that to get here!  The journey began in 2004, when I saw the film 'The Constant Gardener'.  The film was great, but what made the biggest impression on me was the fact that, while I sat watching Hollywood bandits raid refugee camps in a comfy seat in the Belgrave cinema, the same thing was really happening, to real people, on the other side of the world.  It plagued me for a long time that I could just leave the cinema and go about my business - seeing movies, going to uni, drinking lattes - while all this was going on.  Of course Africa is not the only place in the world with more than its share of troubles, but it seemed to me then to be the one that was furthest from my own experience.  So I decided I wanted to go.

In the end it took a few years (and a few aborted attempts) to get here.  But now here I am, on African soil, doing research towards my PhD in refugee law (of which more later).  Given what I am here to do, it is fitting that I am in Johannesburg, quite possibly the refugee capital of the world.  UNHCR statistics from 2010 show that in that year alone South Africa received 180,600 applications for asylum, one fifth of all applications worldwide.  Something like 2 million Zimbabweans have fled their country in search of a better life here.  Not bad for a country that only 20 years ago was a producer, not a receiver, of refugees.  But not great for a country that still cannot house and care for its own population.

This trip is a short one - just three weeks - in preparation for a longer stint later this year, when I will return for about 5 months to conduct my research proper.  So this visit is really about orientation, meeting people who work in the field and just getting a sense of what a real refugee problem looks like.

I've been here for two days already, and seen and done quite a bit - walked the Nelson Mandela bridge, seen the view from the Top of Africa, met my new colleagues at Wits Uni, walked to uni and back without being mugged, joined the gym and found fabulous coffee.  But more on all that later - for now, welcome to my blog!

Tamara