Migration In Southern Africa

Migration Policies in Southern Africa

Migration within the Southern Africa region and from the rest of the continent to the region has increased over the past three decades. This dramatic increase in migration is the region has been possible due to the attainment of independence by many countries in the region such as South Africa and Zimbabwe. The independence of countries in the region removed the restrictions on movement and also increased regional cooperation among countries in the region. Contemporary migratory patterns have been built upon long established tradition of regional labour migration with the region’s mines and plantation farms serving as the migration magnets. Whereas some countries in the region such as Angola, South Africa

Despite the importance of migration in the region, the region lacks accurate and consistent data on migration. This shortfall has imped migration management and policy in the region (Dodson & Crush 2013). This shortcoming, similarly, accounts for discriminatory behave and attitudes towards migrants in the region, often the number of illegal migrants as well as legal migrants are exaggerated. This phenomenon results in the stereotypic view among many citizens in migrant receiving countries such as South Africa that the excessively large number of migrants in their countries account for their unemployment – the migrants are assumed to have “stolen the jobs that were due them”. This attitude towards migrants in the region has been the bases for anti-immigration attitude, xenophobic violence and abuse of migrants in the region; especially in South Africa which experienced two xenophobic attacks

In Harare in 1993, SADC held a workshop on the free movement of people and during this workshop, the sub-regional body’s first protocol on migration (Draft Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons in the Southern African Development Community) was drafted and produced in 1995 (Dodson & Crush 2013). According to Dodson & Crush (2013) between this period and 2005, this protocol was revised and shelved and finally formalized as the SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons. Within the decade long period before the formalization of the new protocol, the region could not effectively implement previously agreed protocols as movement within the region was saddled with barriers which these protocols sought to remove in the first place. Although this new protocol has been signed by majority of SADC members, only four countries have it – Botswana, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa (Dodson & Crush 2013). Crush et al. (2005) notes that whereas there has been challenges in attainment of free movement of people within the region, areas such as trade, education and transportation have received region-wide policy implementation successfully. The regional body has formulated and