Migrants In South Africa Research Articles

Sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress among African female refugees and migrants in South Africa

BackgroundWhile there is considerable research in developed countries on the nature and extent of post-traumatic stress among refugees and migrants, few report on female Africans migrating within Africa.AimThe aim of this study was to investigate the association between exposure to traumatic life events and post-traumatic stress disorder risk in refugees and migrants in Durban, South Africa, with specific focus on sexual trauma events among women.MethodsInterviews were conducted on 157 consenting non-South African adults using a sociodemographic questionnaire, Life Events Checklist (documenting traumatic events experienced) and the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (measuring post-traumatic symptomatology). Associations between total number of traumatic events and post-traumatic stress were explored using adjusted regression models.ResultsThe results of one model indicated that greater numbers of traumatic life events experienced by women were associated with raised odds of post-traumatic stress disorder risk (β = 1.48; p < 0.001). Another model indicated that exposure to sexual trauma events were associated with greater odds of post-traumatic stress disorder risk (β = 4.09; p = 0.02).ConclusionOur findings highlight the critical importance of mental health service for females with history of sexual traumatic events for this vulnerable population.

Sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress among African female refugees and migrants in South Africa.

While there is considerable research in developed countries on the nature and extent of post-traumatic stress among refugees and migrants, few report on female Africans migrating within Africa. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between exposure to traumatic life events and post-traumatic stress disorder risk in refugees and migrants in Durban, South Africa, with specific focus on sexual trauma events among women. Interviews were conducted on 157 consenting non-South African adults using a sociodemographic questionnaire, Life Events Checklist (documenting traumatic events experienced) and the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (measuring post-traumatic symptomatology). Associations between total number of traumatic events and post-traumatic stress were explored using adjusted regression models. The results of one model indicated that greater numbers of traumatic life events experienced by women were associated with raised odds of post-traumatic stress disorder risk (β = 1.48; p < 0.001). Another model indicated that exposure to sexual trauma events were associated with greater odds of post-traumatic stress disorder risk (β = 4.09; p = 0.02). Our findings highlight the critical importance of mental health service for females with history of sexual traumatic events for this vulnerable population.

Reflection on the Xenophobic Violence against African Migrants in South Africa

Reflection on the Xenophobic Violence against African Migrants in South Africa

An overview of rural-urban migration in South Africa: its causes and implications

The failure of the government to prioritise rural development threatens to negatively impact the development of growth of rural areas. Rural-urban migration in South Africa has negatively affected socio-economic development in rural areas. By strictly analysing relevant literature related to rural-urban migration in South Africa, it became evident that rural provinces have been witnessing a huge outflow of people destined for urban areas, predominately to Gauteng and the Western Cape province, this has robbed rural areas of skills and innovation, which has prolonged the cycle of underdevelopment. The influx of people to urban areas has also strained government resources, increased population-growth and increased housing infrastructure challenges. The government has been slow react in addressing the problem and as a result, numerous skilled professionals have left rural areas, crippling service delivery. Frequent cooperation with local leaders and more investment in rural areas are needs to fight rural-urban migration.

Transnational families in migration and remittances : the case of Nigerian migrants in South Africa

Transnational families in migration and remittances : the case of Nigerian migrants in South Africa

Ingrid Palmery: Gender, Sexuality and Migration in South Africa. Governing Morality

Bibliographie: Schafer, Rita: Ingrid Palmery: Gender, Sexuality and Migration in South Africa. Governing Morality, PERIPHERIE, 1-2018, S. 113-115. https://doi.org/10.3224/peripherie.v38i1.12

African immigrants as tourists? The temporary home visits of transnational migrants in South Africa

The paper contributes to exploring the intersection of tourism and migration, an emergent niche area of research. South Africa hosts a large number of transnational migrants, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, mostly from the African continent. Little is known about the travel patterns and touristic aspirations of these groups, as they are mostly believed to be too poor to travel. The current study focuses on the temporary return journeys home undertaken by these migrants. The literature around Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) tourism is reviewed, but it is argued – in line with other scholars – that the VFR classification is insufficient for an analysis of migrant return trips. Based on a qualitative research approach and in-depth semi-structured interviews with migrants and refugees based in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, the research finds how these travellers organise their journeys, what their motivations and experiences are, and what significance they attach to the home visit. It is found that travel to the home land is not always motivated by VFR. Beyond the emotional support from family and friends, for many migrants, the home land is an important, multifarious resource for present and future needs. Pointing out differences with similar studies conducted in various socio-geographic contexts, the paper emphasises the need for locally grounded research and the limited generalisability of extant literature in the field.

Mama Jack and the Spectre of makwerekwere

Abstract This article looks at the ways in which Mama Jack, a South African slapstick comedy, frames certain individuals and groups as makwerekwere. The term, which is popularly used in reference to African migrants in South Africa, appears in the film despite the absence of any African migrant in the literal sense. Nonetheless, Leon Schuster, who plays the lead roles in the film, provides the conditions of the term’s use by performing blackness and exhibiting a stock of images associated with black foreignness. Makwerekwere therefore signifies a phony presence and serves to visualize violence against black foreigners. The article develops from the understanding that all texts, film included, communicate specific ways of seeing the world and therefore participates in the construction and circulation of normalized and misrecognized forms of violence. Film’s signifying potential need not be understated. By focusing on the various ways in which makwerekwere are deployed in Mama Jack, it will be noted that the pursuit of the comic tends to obfuscate and validate the negative portrayal of black foreigners.

Distinctive and continued phases of Indian migration to South Africa with a focus on human security: The case of Durban

A long-term analytical view of Indian migration and their human rights experiences in South Africa is essential to understand what prompts continued Indian migration and the factors that shape migrants’ human security experiences. The intersections of global, social, political and economic powers combine with national and international forces to determine the experiences of migration and human (in)security among Indian migrants in South Africa. This article focuses on historical Indian indentured migrants and the continued post-apartheid contemporary migration of Indians to South Africa. Throughout South Africa’s turbulent, violent and exploitative history, the political constructs of slavery, colonialism, economic expansionism, economic dispossession and apartheid convened in the passage of poor men, women and children from the Indian subcontinent. The article argues that traces of earlier exploitative histories continue to shape the framework for present-day Indian migrants in a way that impacts directly on their human security within a contemporary context.

Migration and gender in South Africa: Following bright lights and the fortunes of others?

AbstractInternal migration in South Africa has a strong gender dimension. Historically, the apartheid‐era migrant labour system meant that predominantly black African men moved to urban areas without their families. After the abolition of influx controls in 1986, many women relocated, presumably to join their male partners. The period of migration feminization was also coupled with labour market feminization. However, existing research shows that increased female labour supply was poorly matched by labour market absorption, leading to rising unemployment among black African women. This paper studies incentives for female migration in this context, by building a gravity model of male and female inter‐municipal migration. We find that neither men nor women move primarily for family reasons. Instead, they follow the traditional male migrant route to well‐lit economic centres. Women also do not migrate primarily for increases in their own labour market opportunities, but tend to flock to regions where other fortunate groups have higher earnings potential. While this might signal that migrants base relocation decisions on incorrect information (and could in turn explain why many migrants have unfulfilled expectations), our results also show that women not only move for work, but for public services. The implications are twofold if migration is to alleviate poverty in the long run: first, in the short run, management of public resources must improve, as poor (women) place large emphasis on their effect; and second, labour market barriers – especially into the informal sector – should be better understood.

Levels of Othering—The Case of Zimbabwean Migrants in South Africa

This article on othering draws on the narratives of Zimbabwean migrants from the country's two major ethnic groups, Shona and Ndebele, living in South Africa. Although Zimbabwean migrants are among the most disliked foreigners, migrants were othered differently based on ethnicity in South Africa. Ndebeles, who speak a language that is closely related to isiZulu and many of whom trace their ancestry to South Africa, generally fared better than Shonas. Zimbabwean migrants are not a homogeneous group, and the results suggest the need for a more nuanced approach in the analysis of their experiences in South Africa.

Forced (Queer) migration and everyday violence: The geographies of life, death, and access in Cape Town

LGBT+ rights have recently gained international attention across the continent and have resulted in expanding tensions surrounding access to both city and state in South Africa. The experiences of LGBT+ asylum seekers, an underexamined group of migrants in South Africa, adds further complexity to the literature that has already challenged common-sense notions of Cape Town as a safe haven for sexual minorities. Increasing xenophobic tensions in South Africa’s major urban centres combined with neoliberal-led cut-backs at municipal and national levels has further hidden and made invisible the struggles of LGBT+ asylum seekers. Accessing shelter and employment are interrelated facets of the right to the city as these aspects determine whether forcibly displaced queer people are allowed to live or are simply abandoned and left to die. Thus, this article asks, ‘What is the interplay between access to the right to the city and the opposing social realities of death?’ Using data from fieldwork conducted in 2014–2015 in Cape Town with NGOs and asylum seekers, I seek to examine the violent processes in which state-structured violence embedded in the heteronormative urban space impedes the survival of forcibly displaced queer people. I argue that LGBT+ asylum seekers in Cape Town navigate a landscape of abandonment and death in their attempts to access the right to the city.

Housing ownership among female migrants in South Africa: The case of metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas

In the study of female migration and housing acquisition, little has been elaborated about the magnitude and the direction of female migrants in South African context. Furthermore, housing tenure status is still under researched. Hence, the determinants of housing ownership, and how this differs across metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas is not sufficiently documented in migration and housing literature. This paper aims at identifying the factors contributing towards housing ownership among internal female migrants, and the differentials in comparing metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in South Africa. This study makes use of the 2007 Community Survey data requested from Statistics South Africa. Logistic regression analysis was performed to highlight the relationship between female migration and housing ownership across areas. The key findings indicate that age, duration of residence, housing type, and household size are the factors contributing towards housing ownership among female migrants. The study found, further, that female migrants living in non-metropolitan areas are more likely to own housing in relation to metropolitan areas.

Transnational migrant home visits as identity practice: The case of African migrants in South Africa

Focussing on the temporary journeys of transnational migrants in South Africa to their home countries on the continent, this paper explores the motivations, subjective experiences and perceived significance of these home visits for the migrants’ sense of identity and belonging. Based on a qualitative interpretive research approach, the study finds that memories and comparisons invariably underpin the experience of the home country, the encounter with the home and engagement with social relations. This induces new insights and sometimes ‘small epiphanies’ (Pearce, 2012), which can lead to self-reflection, self-transformative experiences and shifts in consciousness, affecting the migrant’s sense of belonging.

Experiencing Boundaries: Basotho Migrant Perspectives on the Lesotho-South Africa Border

The Lesotho-South Africa border is regarded as highly porous with many Basotho migrants seizing work and educational opportunities in South Africa, while simultaneously maintaining strong ties to family members, businesses, and land in Lesotho. The fact that Sesotho is spoken on both sides of the border is one of the particular factors that has made it possible for people to move back and forth with relative ease. The border nevertheless remains an important political and socio-cultural barrier in the lives of those crossing it. While some have managed to acquire the permits that enable them to cross the border freely and take up formal work, others occupy a precarious legal status, which limits their housing and employment prospects. Moreover, the lives of all African migrants in South Africa have been affected by growing xenophobic violence in recent years. This has reinforced distinctions between insiders and outsiders, and limited the opportunities migrants have to experience belonging to South African society. Despite these emerging dynamics, the ways in which the border is perceived by migrants — as both a physical barrier between countries and as a social barrier distinguishing peoples — has yet to be explored. Drawing on narrative interviews conducted with Basotho migrants living in Bloemfontein, South Africa in a variety of legal and employment circumstances, this paper aims to highlight the meaning of the border in the migrants’ day-to-day lives.

Social Responsibility with Respect to Religion and Migration in South Africa

Social Responsibility with Respect to Religion and Migration in South Africa

Tourism Migration in South Africa

This article explores the tourism migration within the South African context, thereby focusing on the current dynamics, challenges and future prospects. Tourism and migration are significant towards globalisation. Almost all countries have jumped on the tourism bandwagon as a result of the positive economic benefits that include improving the balance of payments, attracting foreign exchange, and increasing state coffers through the taxation of non-residents. South Africa has also adopted tourism into the developmental policies. Although Africa's share of the global tourism market remains less than 10%, the continental bodies such as the African Union under the wing NEPAD recognises that tourism and migration as an important factor to societies. This paper adopts the content analysis to address the tourism migration, dynamics, challenges and future prospects as a critical phenomenon. Tourism has deep characteristics of a plantation economy that does not benefit the majority of the societies, particularly in South Africa. Despite being a geographical dispersed country, the tourism industry in South Africa faces numerous challenges such as the integration of Black South Africans as product owners; reported high rates of crimes, lack of integration of locals in the tourism industry, the lack of aviation competition, paucity of ports of entry, and most recently the cyber-crime and the visa regulations etc. However, South African tourism remains resilient as a major destination due to its fauna and flora and increasing market niches are developing such as adventure tourism, health tourism and volunteer tourism. South Africa plans to be one of the top 20 destinations by 2020; steps are in place to ensure that South Africa achieves this objective.

Accessing adolescent sexual and reproductive health services among undocumented migrants in South Africa: a documentary review

Adolescent sexual and reproductive health access continues to dominate the development agenda since the historic 1994 Cairo Conference and becomes a huge public health concern for the increasing diverse of undocumented adolescents who have become an important component as irregular migration patterns and profiles shifts in South Africa. The inherent nature of irregular migration poses exposure and vulnerabilities making access to sexual and reproductive health services (SRH) imperative. Findings from this study revealed that access to SRH services among undocumented adolescents migrants is poor attributed to diverse structural, socio-cultural and financial barriers. For South Africa, conflicting health and migration policies leads to inconsistencies in service provision making it difficult for both adolescents and health service providers to strike a balance between migration and health considerations. Migration remains politically sensitive with punitive measures for those in undocumented state who are subsequently marginalized and excluded from accessing all social services, health included. Health policies on the other hand are non discriminatory, employing an all inclusive approach to all adolescents irrespective of migration status. While the study demonstrated that adolescent SRH services among undocumented adolescent in South Africa may be poor, such findings are however inconclusive to suggest that SRH outcomes are also poor.

The translocal villagers. Mining, mobility and stratification in post-apartheid South Africa

Internal labour migration from rural areas to urban centres has been and remains one of the dominant patterns of migration in South Africa. Based on data from ethnographic field research, this paper explores the mobility patterns and translocal relations of miners in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. By considering the tension between mobility and locality in a historical and political perspective, the concept of translocality helps to explain why miners try to expand their action space and, at the same time, why they are embedded in certain places. Thus, a translocal perspective enhances the interpretation of the spatio-temporal transformations in South Africa’s mining communities and beyond, as it sheds light on the agency of mine workers, superseding merely structuralist explanations.

The Relationship Between Social Support, HIV Serostatus, and Perceived Likelihood of Being HIV Positive Among Self-Settled Female, Foreign Migrants in Cape Town, South Africa.

Female cross-border migrants experience elevated risks for HIV, and migrants in South Africa may face additional risks due to the country's underlying HIV prevalence. These risks may be mitigated by the receipt of social support. A behavioral risk-factor survey was administered using respondent-driven sampling. Multivariable regression models assessed the relationships between social support and two HIV outcomes: HIV serostatus and perceived HIV status. Low social support was not significantly associated with HIV status (aOR = 1.03, 95 % CI 0.43-2.46), but was significantly related to a perception of being HIV positive (aPR = 1.36, 95 % CI 1.04-1.78). Age, marital status, and education level were significantly associated with HIV serostatus. Illegal border-crossing, length of time in South Africa, anal sex, and transactional sex were significantly associated with aperception of being HIV positive. Future research should investigate how HIV risks and the receipt of social support change throughout the migration process.