South Africa’s Induction for Asylum Seekers

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, has announced that his department is finalising an integration strategy encompassing induction training for asylum seekers and refugees.

Gigaba, who maintains that South Africa has no provision for the ‘basic induction’ of foreigners, says the proposed training will provide answers to such questions as “what is SA, what is its constitution, human rights, languages, and what type of people do we have?”

However, Loren Landau of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Forced Migration Studies Programme, says until the country has a legal framework that provide some form of documentation for foreigners already in the country and those likely to come, the discussion of integration remain premature.

“Once we’ve done that, I think it would make sense for government to start a discussion about migrants’ rights and responsibilities as part of a broader, national debate over what it means to live in a diverse and dynamic country,” says Landau.

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