PROTECTION FROM XENOPHOBIA

South African xenophobia manifests in various forms, ranging from everyday street-level abuse to discrimination and harassment by government officials and recurring bouts of popular xenophobic violence in varying intensity and scale. There is strong evidence that outsiders, a group including non-nationals, domestic migrants, and others, living and working in South Africa face discrimination. This comes at the hands of citizens, government officials, the police, and private organisations contracted to manage and provide services, promote urban development or manage detention and deportation processes. More specifically, such ‘outsiders’, including but not limited to UNHCR’s PoC, face disproportionate difficulties in accessing employment, accommodation, banking services, and health care, along with extortion, targeted corruption, arbitrary arrest, detention and deportation (Landau, et al., 2004; Crush, 2008). While arrest, detention and deportation are fundamental components of the country’s immigration regime, research over the last two decades suggests that such practices are carried out in ways that are not only highly prejudicial but often extend well beyond legal limits (Amit, 2010).