LHR AND ACMS LAUNCH REPORT REVEALING RAMPANT CORRUPTION WITHIN SOUTH AFRICA’S ASYLUM SYSTEM
22 July 2015
Today Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration & Society at Wits University launched key research findings on corruption within the South African asylum process, especially at the Department of Home Affairs’ five refugee recepton offices.
The report found that there were significant levels of corruption at various stages of the asylum process. In particular, the experiences of asylum seekers and refugees indicate corruption is a very real problem at the refugee reception offices. Access, documentation, status, and renewals are all linked to payment, as are many other services tied to the asylum process. Moreover, as inefficiencies in the system increase, both the opportunities for and the need to acquiesce to corruption increase. In many cases, individuals are left with the choice of paying or remaining undocumented.
Across all five refugee reception offices, just less than one third of respondents had experienced being asked to pay money inside or outside a refugee reception office; and those who had experienced it had been asked an average of 4.4. times. In the survey of the five offices, the highest rates of corruption were found at the Marabastad refugee reception office in Pretoria, and the lowest rates at the Durban refugee reception office.
The report identified various levels of people being involved in corruption such as security guards, interpreters, refugee reception officers, refugee status determination officers, police officers and private brokers.
The report identified a number of administrative problems at the refugee reception offices and in the asylum process which created opportunities for corruption. LHR and ACMS highlighted unwieldy queue management, poor quality status determination procedures, and arbitrary discretion in issuing documents and renewals as key issues of concern in this regard. In addition, we noted the failure of the Department of Home Affairs to respond to high levels of demand that quickly exceeded the capacity of a system designed around individualised decision-making.
The report contains a number of recommendations to the Department of Home Affairs about changes that could be made to administrative processes that would prevent corruption taking place. It also makes suggestions of how the DHA can investigate corruption.
Our overall concerns about the current situation
- Corruption affects the ability of individual to obtain their South African and international rights to refugee protection;
- Corruption has implications for the whole South African public service as it risks producing a system where the behaviour of public officials is removed from legal guarantees and the principles of equality, fairness, and accountability;
- Corruption delinks deliberation of refugee status from actual evaluation of refugee protection needs, thereby providing a mechanism for economic migrants to enter the country and regularise their status;
- By enabling loopholes in the asylum status, corruption undermines the government’s professed migration management goals at a time when the govrnment is devoting greater resource to border control and deportation;
- It is precisely those migrants whose entry the government is seeking to control who can undermine these controls by engaging with corrupt officials, security guards and other brokers;
- In an environment where concerns over the number of migrants has resulted in xenophobic attacks and police crackdowns like Operation Fiela-Reclaim, the perpetuation of a situation undermining the country’s migration management goals defies logic;
- At the same time, individuals with valid protection needs may be denied refugee protection because they are either unwilling or unable to engage with these same officials.
The full report can be accessed here - PDF
Statement issued by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration & Society at Wits University, July 22 2015
