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Background

Recent labor migration to South Africa

Since 1994 the number of documented and undocumented foreign migrants in South Africa has greatly increased.  Most migrants come from neighboring countries that are also members of the regional organization, the Southern African Development Community (SADC).  Long-term structural and more recent factors have contributed to the growing influx of foreign migrants.  Long-term factors include South Africa’s long and porous borders with its neighbors, which are difficult to control;¹   the “enormous and elastic” potential supply of labor from the SADC member states;²  and South Africa’s economic dominance in the region, which makes it an attractive destination for migrants.  Newer factors include South Africa’s democratic dispensation since 1994, which offers migrants more rights than they can claim in most other countries of the region, and changing conditions in neighboring countries, notably Mozambique and Zimbabwe.  While the end of the Mozambican civil war in 1992 halted the stream of refugees into South Africa, it did not reduce economic migration from that country. The political and economic situation in Zimbabwe, which has continued to deteriorate since 2000, has fuelled Zimbabwean migration.³  Today, Zimbabweans are arguably the largest group of foreign Africans in South Africa,⁴ having recently overtaken Mozambicans, who historically held that position.⁵ 

South Africa’s policy toward legal and undocumented migration has been about enforcement, control, and exclusion.  Immigration policy today, as in the past, promotes the use of temporary foreign workers who are generally not allowed to be accompanied by their families.  As in the 1990s, South Africa still seeks to control undocumented migrants through deportations rather than pressure on employers to comply with immigration law.⁶  Its aggressive deportation policy, despite making substantial demands on financial and human resources, has not been able to stem the increase in undocumented migrants.  The media frequently uses an estimate of 5–8 million foreigners without immigration documents, while migration scholars generally agree that the lower end of this range, 5 million, is a reasonable estimate.⁷

The number of deportations from South Africa has grown significantly in recent years, as Department of Home Affairs (DHA) statistics indicate: 44,225 (1988),⁸ 96,600(1993), 151,653 (2002), 164,294 (2003), 167,137 (2004), and 209,988 (2005).⁹  Groups monitoring migration have noted that deported individuals often return almost immediately to South Africa, underscoring the limitations of the deportation policy.¹⁰ 

From at least 1990, Mozambicans and Zimbabweans have comprised at least 80 percent of total annual deportations.¹¹  Between 1990 and 2004, more Mozambicans than any other foreign national group were deported, and Zimbabweans were in second place.  Since 2005, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans have traded places in the deportation chart, reflecting changes in their relative proportion of deportations that began around 2000.  Zimbabwean migrant deportations from South Africa have increased rapidly—approximately 46,000 in 2000,¹² 74,765 in 2004,¹³ more than 97,000 in 2005, and almost 80,000 between May 31 and December 31, 2006.¹⁴ The increasing number of Zimbabwean deportees has put particular pressure on Musina police station in Limpopo province, which is close to the border with Zimbabwe and is the major point of deportation for Zimbabweans. To accommodate the large numbers of detainees being deported to Zimbabwe from Musina, the South African Police Service is in the process of building an immigration detention facility in Musina.

Rather than helping to contain the numbers of undocumented migrants, a restrictive immigration policy has had the effect of encouraging “a massive ‘trade’ in forged documentation” and “police corruption as migrants buy the right to stay.”¹⁵  The process of seeking asylum and of refugee determination has also become enmeshed in corruption in large part as a result of the South African government’s efforts to severely limit the number of asylum seekers and refugees.¹⁶ 

A 2006 study commissioned by Lawyers for Human Rights and several other organizations found that Zimbabwean refugees and asylum seekers are especially vulnerable to abuse by various government departments, and particularly by officials in the DHA and the South African Police Service (SAPS).¹⁷  The study also revealed a perception among police officers that there is “no war in Zimbabwe,” and therefore Zimbabweans could not possibly have a right to political asylum or refugee status.¹⁸  Officials’ attitudes to Zimbabwean asylum seekers help to explain why at the end of 2005 only 114 Zimbabweans had secured refugee status,  while nearly 16,000 Zimbabweans had pending cases.¹⁹  

Foreign migrant farm workers and commercial farmers in South Africa

Agriculture in South Africa accounts for less than 5 percent of gross domestic product, almost 11 percent of formal sector employment, and nearly 10 percent of South Africa’s total exports.²⁰ Continuing a long-term trend, the number of agricultural workers decreased by 152,445 (13.9 percent) from just over 1 million in 1993 to 940,820 in 2002.²¹  Nearly half of the employees in 2002 were casual and seasonal workers, and their number had increased by 3.2 percent since 1993.²²  Despite different methods used to count agricultural employees in the 2002 census and the Statistics South Africa annual labor surveys, the latter also record an ongoing and significant decline in agricultural employment between 2001 and 2005.²³ 

Despite the decline in agricultural employment, there appears to have been an increase in the employment of foreign agricultural workers.  The 1996 Farmworkers Research and Resource Project (FRRP) survey of farm workers, the first attempt to document conditions on South African farms, suggested that the employment of foreign migrants in agriculture had increased since 1990.²⁴  This finding is significant because the survey did not focus on border areas or on major migration routes that cross commercial farming districts, where foreign migrants are known to concentrate.²⁵   A 1998 study of farm workers in precisely such areas seemed to corroborate the view that foreigners are providing a larger share of farm labor, noting that “it also seems that border farmers are drawing, perhaps like never before, on cross-border migrants to meet their temporary and seasonal labour needs.”²⁶  Border farmers in the Free State draw heavily on labor from Lesotho, those in Mpumalanga and in the south and southeast of Limpopo province on Mozambicans, and those in the northern part of Limpopo province on Zimbabweans.  

Often foreign farm workers’ de jure status as temporary residents or undocumented residents is at variance with a de facto status as permanent residents.  Many foreign farm workers have worked on farms for extended periods of time.  The 1996 FRRP survey concluded that over 50 percent of “immigrant farmworkers” had been on the farm for more than five years, about 16 percent for 11-20 years, and some 10 percent for more than 20 years.  These findings suggest, as Jonathan Crush notes, “a long-standing pattern of permanent farmwork and residence in South Africa by non-South Africans.”²⁷  It is also the case that some farmers will use the label “temporary” even though the farm workers have actually been working full-time and for long periods.  

Farm workers, including foreign migrants, have had a right to organize since 1993.²⁸   Whereas nearly 30 percent of the labor force was unionized in 2006, less than 9 percent of employees in the agricultural sector were trade union members.  Only employees in private households had lower rates of organization (under 2 percent).²⁹  As in other countries, the agricultural sector is difficult to organize because of low pay and problems of access and communication with workers who are geographically isolated.  Employers are hostile to union organizers who must obtain the employers’ permission to visit the farms as they are private property, and workers who try to form or join trade unions may face intimidation, violence, and dismissal.³⁰  In South Africa, farm workers’ unions also suffer from lack of organizational and financial capacity.³¹   

According to a Statistics South Africa 2000 survey of employment trends in agriculture, “in terms of key socio-economic variables, the situation of people employed in the agricultural sector tends to be less favorable than every other major sector of the economy.”³²   Human Rights Watch research found that working conditions for many in the sector have improved since 2000, but abuses remain commonplace.  Undocumented foreign farm workers remain, as in the past, especially vulnerable to exploitation, despite significant improvements in the legal protections provided for them.³³

Commercial farmers face dramatic challenges arising from changes in their business and legal environment.  Farmers have had to adapt to the removal of subsidies, protective tariffs, cheap finance, and a labor force whose productivity is compromised by the prevalence of HIV/AIDS.   Additionally, farmers face land claims under land redistribution laws and must contend with laws, such as the Extension of Security of Tenure Act, protecting farm residents from arbitrary eviction.  A 2001 Human Rights Watch report captures the magnitude of legal and non-legal changes affecting commercial farmers:  “Among employment sectors, the 1994 change of government has had perhaps the most profound effect on the working environment of the commercial farmer in South Africa.”³⁴  As discussed later, farmers have also had to adapt to legal changes affecting their relationships with their employees and their wage bill. 

Mozambican and Zimbabwean farm workers in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces

Nearly 90 percent of Limpopo’s 5.6 million people live in rural areas, making it the most rural province in the country.³⁵  About 61 percent of Mpumalanga’s 3.2 million people live in rural areas.³⁶   Limpopo is the poorest province of South Africa, with the highest official unemployment rate (32.4 percent) and the worst scores on other poverty indicators.³⁷  More than 33 percent of Limpopo’s population aged 20 years and older has not received any form of schooling.³⁸  Mpumalanga compares favorably with Limpopo in these respects:  Mpumalanga’s official unemployment rate is 27.4 percent and about the same percentage of its population 20 years or older has not had any form of education.³⁹  Limpopo contributed 6.5 percent and Mpumalanga 7.5 percent to the country’s gross domestic product in 2003.⁴⁰   Limpopo’s provincial capital is Polokwane (Pietersburg) and Mpumalanga’s is Nelspruit.  

Over two-thirds of the land in Limpopo and Mpumalanga was allocated for white ownership and use in the past.  The vast majority of the population lived in the former homelands—Lebowa, Gazankulu, and Venda in Limpopo and KaNgwane in Mpumalanga—that occupied most of the remaining one-third of the land.⁴¹  Though the pace of land reform in both provinces has accelerated, and restitution claims have succeeded or are being adjudicated, the apartheid era’s racially discriminatory patterns of land ownership have not substantially altered.⁴²  Most large commercial farms are still owned by whites; black farmers engage mainly in subsistence farming on communal land.  Black farmers who engage in commercial farming in the former homelands on land that cannot be privately owned are sometimes referred to as Trust land farmers (they only occupy their land, which is held in trust by the chiefs).  

Commercial agricultural production and employment

In Limpopo, north of the Soutpansberg, mainly stock farms and a smaller number of game farms cover most of the land given over to commercial farming.  Citrus and vegetable farms are concentrated in the Limpopo Valley, (especially Weipe), Tshipise, and Waterpoort.  At the foot of the Soutpansberg, subtropical fruits and a variety of nuts are grown in the Makhado area, including Levubu, and also in Tzaneen.  Commercial forests lie on the higher slopes and stock farms are to the south.  The province also has private tea estates on land leased from the state, and tobacco farms.⁴³   The province produces about 75 percent of the country’s mangoes, 65 percent of its papaya, 36 percent of its tea, 25 percent of its citrus, bananas, and litchis, 60 percent of its avocados, and 60 percent of its tomatoes.⁴⁴

Mpumalanga’s highveld region is dominated by rain-fed grain production.  The lowveld region’s agriculture focuses on citrus, subtropical fruits, vegetables, and macadamia nuts.  Because these crops require irrigation, the farms are close to the major rivers around the lowveld districts of Nelspruit, Barberton, and White River.  Transvaal Suiker Beperk (TSB), or Transvaal Sugar Limited, built sugar mills at Malelane in the 1970s and near Komatipoor in the 1980s.  Adjacent commercial farms now grow a combination of sugar and one or more varieties of citrus, subtropical fruit (avocadoes, litchis, mangoes, bananas), and vegetables.⁴⁵  Nelspruit is the second largest citrus-producing area in South Africa and accounts for one-third of the country’s exports of oranges.  There is extensive commercial forestry along the escarpment around Sabie and Graskop, which provide a large part of the country’s forestry products.⁴⁶

In 2002 (the date of the most recent commercial agriculture census) Limpopo’s 2,915 commercial farm units represented 6.36 percent of commercial farm units in the country, and employed 101,249 regular, casual, and seasonal workers.  Mpumalanga’s 5,104 commercial farm units in Mpumalanga represented 11.14 percent of commercial farm units nationally, and employed 108,083 workers.⁴⁷  In Limpopo, some 45 percent of full-time workers were women, compared to 62 percent of casual and seasonal workers.   The percentage of female casual and seasonal workers was slightly greater (64 percent) in Mpumalanga than in Limpopo, while the percentage of female full-time farm workers (under 30 percent) was lower in Mpumalanga.⁴⁸  These data indicate the importance of female farm workers, particularly as casual and seasonal workers. 

Recruitment and legal status of Zimbabwean and Mozambican farm workers

Foreign farm workers are concentrated on the commercial farms in the border areas of both provinces.  Around the late 1960s, farms along the Limpopo border began to rely increasingly on workers who came from the immediate border area.  In 1999, before a big influx of Zimbabweans, there were an estimated 15,000 Zimbabwean farm workers, documented and undocumented, north of the Soutpansberg.⁴⁹ The deterioration of the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe from 2000 onwards led to Zimbabweans from all over Zimbabwe seeking farm employment in South Africa.  These migrant farm workers return regularly to Zimbabwe.  For some, farm work is merely a stepping stone en route to a job in Johannesburg.⁵⁰ 

Farmers north and south of the Soutpansberg who rely on Zimbabwean workers praise their work habits, their ability to speak English, and their level of education (the more recently arrived Zimbabwean farm workers are more likely than in the past to include high school leavers).⁵¹   Farmers south of the Soutpansberg who depend on South African labor are hostile to Zimbabwean migrants, holding them responsible for the increase in crime in the province.⁵²  Some farmers talk openly of how they strive to keep their areas “clean of Zimbabweans.”⁵³ 

Lowveld farmers in today’s Mpumalanga province have recruited Mozambican farm labor since at least the 1920s.⁵⁴  In the mid-1980s the Mozambican civil war led to a large influx of Mozambican refugees into the Transvaal, part of which is now Limpopo and Mpumalanga.  Approximately 240,000 settled in the homelands of Gazankulu, KaNgwane, and Kwazulu, and most remained there after the end of the war in 1992.⁵⁵  Unlike other foreign farm workers, these Mozambicans were never migrants but constituted a resident population.⁵⁶  They became part of the “captive labor pool” of the homelands, but were preferred for work on the farms over South Africans because of a reputation then, as today, for hard work and docility.⁵⁷ Without legal documents to reside or work in South Africa, the Mozambican refugees joined the vulnerable population of undocumented foreign workers.⁵⁸ 

Amnesties affecting Mozambicans

Between 1995 and 1999 the South African cabinet offered three immigration amnesties—in 1995 for foreign migrant miners who had worked on the mines for more than 10 years;⁵⁹  in 1996 for citizens of SADC countries who had entered South Africa illegally before 1990; and in 1999 for Mozambican refugees⁶⁰—through which a total of 197, 125 Mozambicans resident in South Africa received South African identity documents with permanent residence.⁶¹ An unknown number of Mozambicans or children of Mozambicans born in South Africa also received South African identity documents with citizenship through marriage, adoption into local families, and integration through the school system.⁶² It is estimated that about 80 percent of all Mozambicans who are long-term residents of Limpopo and Mpumalanga now have South African identity documents.⁶³    According to Mpumalanga province’s head of the Immigration Inspectorate in Nelspruit, the amnesties resulted in “a big part of the workforce” leaving the farms, with most heading for urban areas, and therefore large-scale recruitment of new workers.⁶⁴

Today the Mozambique Labor Department’s sub-delegate office in Nelspruit has 25,000-27,000 Mozambicans who are registered as working legally on farms in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces.  Most of these Mozambicans—around 20,000—work in Mpumalanga, chiefly in the border areas.   In Limpopo, Mozambican farm workers are concentrated around Hoedspruit, Tzaneen, and Phalaborwa.  ZZ2, the largest tomato farm in Africa, lies between Tzaneen and Makhado and employs about 1,400 Mozambican workers.⁶⁵

Institutional differences facing Mozambicans and Zimbabweans

An important institutional difference governs the legal recruitment of Mozambican and Zimbabwean farm labor.  Since 1964, a bilateral treaty between Mozambique and South Africa has regulated the recruitment and repatriation of Mozambican mine workers.  Today farm workers benefit from a measure of protection provided by institutions established to implement the bilateral treaty for mine workers.⁶⁶  In particular, there is a private recruiting organization, Agencia Algos, which has an office in Nelspruit.  Mozambicans in South Africa can apply for Mozambican passports through Algos, and Algos issues service contracts to be signed by farmers and workers.⁶⁷  Mozambican workers may also request the Mozambique Labor Department’s office in Nelspruit to help with documentation, work-related grievances, and social matters, including the repatriation of deceased workers’ bodies or burial arrangements.  The labor office also uses at least one nongovernmental organization, Masisukumeni Women’s Crisis Centre, to promote and facilitate the documentation of Mozambicans in Mpumalanga. 

Unlike Mozambique, Zimbabwe has never had a bilateral treaty with South Africa on the recruitment and repatriation of Zimbabwean workers. Zimbabweans in South Africa, therefore, have no Zimbabwean government labor office or private recruitment agencies to help them obtain documents, mediate workplace disputes, repatriate deceased workers’ bodies, and bury workers who die.  The governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa are believed to be moving toward signing a bilateral agreement:  In October 2004  they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Employment and Labour to ensure that farm owners in the entire Limpopo province—and not only north of the Soutpansberg—comply with immigration and labor laws.⁶⁸ 

Mozambican migrants encounter another institutional advantage over Zimbabwean migrants with respect to visa requirements to enter South Africa.  Since April 2005 Mozambicans may enter South Africa for up to 30 days without a visa.  Previously, they had to pay R425 (US$60.98)⁶⁹ for a visa and meet various entry requirements, including having to demonstrate to the South African High Commission (or embassy) that they had accommodation and sufficient funds to support themselves.   Since the withdrawal of these requirements, the number of Mozambicans who enter or leave South Africa has doubled from 4,000 per day to 8,000 per day, and tourism has been encouraged.  If Mozambicans overstay the 30-day limit—and many do—the DHA may fine them.⁷⁰

Zimbabweans who wish to visit South Africa for any period, including for short visits up to 30 days, must obtain a visa.  The visa itself is free but the South African government requires them to demonstrate that they have R1, 000 (US$143.47) in travelers’ checks and must comply with other requirements before they may be granted a visa.  The head of the Immigration Inspectorate in Nelspruit said that of all SADC member states’ citizens, only Zimbabweans had to meet visa requirements to enter South Africa.⁷¹  

Zimbabweans also have found it difficult to obtain a passport in a timely manner because of their government’s bureaucratic delays.  The government of Zimbabwe agreed under the MOU to issue Zimbabwean migrants on farms in the Limpopo with emergency travel documents (ETDs).  ETDs are issued more quickly and cheaply than passports but they are not available to most Zimbabwean migrants.  In November 2006 the Registrar General’s office stopped issuing Zimbabwean passports, already difficult to obtain, because it lacked the foreign exchange to import the ink used.⁷²   The stringent visa requirements and the problems of securing a passport mean that most Zimbabweans who wish to migrate have little option but to become irregular migrants. 

International Organization for Migration and Zimbabwean deportees

The IOM has become involved in providing protection for Zimbabweans as a result of establishing a reception center to provide humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwean deportees.  Funded mainly by the United Kingdom government’s Department for International Development (DFID), the IOM opened the center for deportees at the end of May 2006 in the border town of Beitbridge in Zimbabwe.⁷³ 

In our August 2006 report, “Unprotected Migrants: Zimbabweans in South Africa’s Limpopo province,” Human Rights Watch had expressed deep skepticism about the likelihood of the IOM center benefiting Zimbabweans forced to leave South Africa.⁷⁴  Human Rights Watch had also stated that the IOM’s past failure to confront and criticize the Zimbabwean government’s human rights abuses in the context of international humanitarian assistance suggested that it would be unlikely to defend deportees’ and migrants’ rights should so doing require an oppositional stance toward the government of Zimbabwe.  

Human Rights Watch had an opportunity to visit the center in October 2006.   We were impressed by the assistance that the IOM is providing to deportees and by its efforts to protect the rights of deportees, as we describe below.  However, we note that a significant percentage of Zimbabweans reject any IOM assistance, as IOM statistics provided below indicate, and prefer to return immediately to South Africa, as IOM staff themselves acknowledged in interviews with us.⁷⁵   Zimbabweans will continue to participate in irregular migration for at least two reasons.  Firstly, they are unable to obtain employment at home.  Secondly, they are unable to obtain passports because the government of Zimbabwe has stopped issuing them and the stringent financial requirements to obtain a visa are beyond the means of the vast majority of Zimbabwean migrants, as discussed above.  The IOM should use its working relationship with the Zimbabwe government to pressure it to facilitate “regular” or legal migration by making it possible for Zimbabweans to obtain passports and visas expeditiously and inexpensively.  

As explained to Human Rights Watch by IOM officials at the center, on a daily basis the center receives several hundred deportees.  Deportees from Lindela (South Africa’s detention center, west of Johannesburg, where foreigners awaiting deportation are held) arrive on Thursdays and may number 700 to 1,000. They are transported by train from Johannesburg to Musina police station, and from there to Beitbridge, Zimbabwe by road, either by South African police or immigration officials.  Seven days a week deportees arrive by road from police stations in Limpopo province.  The deportees attend a mandatory IOM staff lecture to inform them about the hazards of irregular migration, how to obtain passports and visas for South Africa, and what services IOM offers them in Beitbridge so that they can make an informed decision on whether to accept IOM services, including free transport home.   The deportees are then processed by the Zimbabwean immigration officials at the newly built police office and immigration office.  They may then choose whether to accept IOM assistance.  Between May 31 and September 26, 2006, of 47,765 deportees whom South African officials said they had dropped off at the Beitbridge police station in Zimbabwe, almost 50 percent registered to accept IOM assistance, and 92 percent of those who registered availed themselves of transport assistance to their homes.⁷⁶

Those who seek IOM assistance must provide basic personal information to IOM staff, primarily to facilitate the organization of their transport home or medical or quasi-legal assistance and follow up as required.  After registration, the deportees are provided with a free meal.  Meanwhile, Corridors for Hope, which is contracted by IOM, provides HIV/AIDS information to the deportees and issues vouchers for deportees to visit the clinic nearest to their homes for free HIV/AIDS testing and counseling.  All deportees who seek free transport assistance must also be declared “fit for travel” by one of the two IOM nurses.  If the nurses find individuals who require further medical assistance, they are taken to Beitbridge Hospital where IOM pays for their treatment.  At the end of each day, the buses that will take the deportees to their homes arrive.  Before boarding the buses, the World Food Programme provides deportees with a food pack of 12.5 kilograms of cereal, and when available, 2 kilograms of lentils.⁷⁷ 

The IOM holds regular meetings with South African and Zimbabwean government officials at which it raises issues of rights abuses that come to its attention, often from random interviews conducted by its staff members with deportees at the center.  Between May 31 and September 26, 2006, the IOM dealt with 20 cases of rape, physical and sexual assault, trafficking, and the deportation of physically and mentally challenged individuals.   The IOM has also assisted returned migrants to get their passports back, to report and identify thieves and rapists who operate in the border area and help to bring them to trial, to report officials who have allegedly abused Zimbabweans during arrest or detention, to verify documents of Zimbabweans with a legal right to stay in South Africa and return them to South Africa, amongst other cases.  Either the victims or others brought these cases to the IOM’s attention and asked it to pursue the cases with South African government officials.   Between mid-July and December 31, 2006, the IOM received almost 950 unaccompanied children under 18 years old.   These children were referred to the child center, built and maintained by the IOM, financially supported by Save the Children Norway and UNICEF, and under the overall management of the Zimbabwean Ministry of Social Welfare.⁷⁸ 

In November 2006 the Zimbabwe state media reported that Zimbabwean police conducted Operation Restore Order from November 13 to November 26 along the Limpopo border to target “cross-border criminals.”⁷⁹  South African media reported that the police had arrested some 2,000 illegal border crossers.  In December 2006, there were high-level meetings between South African and Zimbabwean state officials at the Limpopo border on the issue of cross-border crime.⁸⁰  The program officer of the IOM center believes the police operation was a response to IOM reports about rape, sexual abuse, and deportees’ claims of having to pay thieves to cross the Limpopo river.⁸¹ 

The IOM has informed Human Rights Watch that it would like to establish a reception and support center in Mozambique for Mozambican deportees from South Africa.  The IOM expects a Mozambican government official to visit its Beitbridge center in Zimbabwe “in the not too distant future.”  The IOM recognizes, however, that the donor environment in Mozambique is different from that of Zimbabwe, and that it may take longer to establish a facility in Mozambique.⁸²