I am particularly pleased to participate in this Conference
and on this panel because of the relevance of the themes to our
own debate on migration issues in South Africa. I also believe
that the South African experience may have a degree of relevance
to ongoing debates in other countries. Migration is becoming an
increasingly more relevant policy issue for which there are still
uncertain conceptual frameworks and policy direction. In South
Africa we had to face a unique challenge which, as we soon
discovered, also offered a unique opportunity.
The system of apartheid, the international isolation of our
country and its previous mind set left the new South Africa,
which emerged out of our first democratic elections of April
1994, completely unprepared to deal with the challenges and
opportunities of migration control. We had to reinvent a new
system from scratch, without being hindered in this process by
established paradigms or entrenched notions. In designing a new
system of migration control, we had to identify a new policy
framework of priorities and concerns which could meet the demands
of globalisation in the 21st century while addressing the
specific needs of our country.
We are now in the process of launching a comprehensive
legislative and administrative reform which will be spearheaded
by a Bill now being considered by our Parliament. This enactment
will be followed by an extensive process of regulation drafting
which will need to reexamine the details of our system of
migration control, ranging from admission forms to procedures for
investigation and deportation. By and large, the new system of
migration control has coupled greater flexibility in enabling
foreigners to come to South Africa and obtain a relevant
temporary or permanent immigration status, with objective,
predictable and simple criteria which underpin the issuance of
permits.
We have sought to liberalise our system of admission while
shifting administrative capacity away from the often time and
resource consuming processing of permit applications, towards law
enforcement and the inspection of our communities and workplaces
to prevent, detect and redress phenomena related to illegal
aliens. At the same time our new legislation will, for the first
time, establish a specific statutory function preventing, curing
and redressing xenophobia.
This is the first time in South Africa that the prevention and
mitigation of xenophobia becomes a specific statutory
responsibility of an organ of the State. I am given to understand
that this is somehow unique even on a worldwide basis, as there
are few examples of organs of the state being specifically tasked
with the function of dealing with xenophobia. We identified this
as an issue of importance at the beginning of our process of
policy formulation, which was in 1995, and ahead of the
resolution of this year’s UN high level Conference Against
Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and other forms of
Intolerance, which have placed this issue on the international
agenda.
However that Conference did not give specific guidance on how to
deal with xenophobia or even towards identifying the makeup,
phenomenology and import of xenophobia. In our legislation, we
identified education of the citizenry as one of the key elements
of a successful campaign against xenophobia, but we suspect we
will have to undertake a great deal of study and research to
learn more about the monster we will have to fight. I also
suspect that the analysis of the issues relating to xenophobia
will tie very closely with the themes of multiculturalism.
We have noticed how this 6th International Metropolis Conference
highlights the importance of setting on the agenda the
integration of temporary and permanent foreign residents within
the social matrix of our country. I think this is an important
issue in that the value of foreigners greatly depends on their
becoming part and parcel of our communities, as does the
possibility of reducing negative social implications which are at
times marginally associated with foreign communities, such as
criminality. The important thing is to ensure that foreigners do
not remain foreigners or strangers to the functioning of the
society and communities in which they operate.
This integration, which in certain contexts may even be aimed at
assimilation, will certainly require fighting xenophobia, but
will undoubtedly also call for much greater pro-active efforts to
assist foreign individuals and communities to overcome the
barriers which obstruct integration. I understand that, in
countries such as The Netherlands, this is a difficult balance
where it is necessary to energetically stimulate foreigners to
learn Dutch to enable them to operate within society as required
or expected, while at the same time remaining sensitive to the
need of protecting cultural identities and maintaining the
foreigner’s cultural capital, in order to avoid that
dysfunctionality may emerge out of their cultural displacement.
In South Africa we still have not focussed on the issues of
integration and assimilation of foreigners, and these issues have
not featured in any way in our policy or public debates, even
though I believe they will become increasingly more relevant,
especially in light of our new legislation making the immigration
door more greatly ajar. However, I suspect that in South Africa
there will be a lesser degree of relevance to the issue of
integration than there is in European or North American
countries, in that we are not a homogeneous but a vastly
heterogeneous and diverse society with eleven official languages
and a variety of cultures, nationhood and ethnic groupings.
Within this context, while there will be less pressure on
foreigners to conform, there will be an equal demand on them to
find the necessary tools, skills and information to operate
within South Africa on par with our own nationals. Their
advantage will be that of operating within a society which, in
all communities, is becoming increasingly more equipped to deal
with diversity.
At this present juncture, our policy debate has highlighted the
benefits of migration for our country and has not questioned the
impact of globalisation on the social cohesion of the state. Our
debate has highlighted our country’s need for skilled
foreigners, as our economy is presently impaired from capturing
its existing growth potentials because of insufficient qualified,
skilled people across the board in its many economic sectors. Our
needs are such that we cannot classify qualifications and skills
on the basis of rigid certification and maintain traditional
divisions between for instance professional and unprofessional
applicants. Hence we have opted for a more flexible system which
relies on the employer to determine what skills he or she needs
beyond any classification, and we have put in place a mechanism
to ensure that each foreigner employed is indeed needed.
In our country we have had significant emigration of skilled
people, known as ‘brain drain’, which we sought to
correct through ‘brain gain’ in addition to our having
programmes of skills training which, in this context, are styled
as ‘brain train’. Nonetheless, in spite of the more
official aspects of the policy debate highlighting the benefits
of immigration, there are deep, strong undercurrents both within
government and political circles and communities alike which feel
that, in general, foreigners in our territory are an evil, even
though at times an admittedly necessary one.
I feel differently, as I believe that South Africa needs to reach
a critical mass of skilled people and additional economically
active consumers before we can jumpstart our economic growth to
the point where we may provide for the large masses of our people
which have not yet been absorbed in our economy and live beyond
its margins.
In this respect, our migration policy is tailored to our own
needs. Over and above the satisfaction of our needs, I feel that
there is a positive intangible which will derive to our country
from the movement of people in a globalised world. Migration will
also create a more vibrant labour market addressing the present
stagnation created in it by a lack of flexibility. Our system of
migration control does not allow foreigners to work at terms and
conditions which are in any way inferior to those applicable to
our nationals, also in terms of collective bargaining agreements.
Nonetheless, a greater variety of available skills and potential
employees will undoubtedly create flexibility in the labour
market without affecting labour standards and conditions of
employment.
After the September 11 terrorist attack, we had to question
whether the framework which we developed during the past five
years of policy formulation could still maintain the viability of
its original vision, which is one of liberalising admission to
South Africa. After extensive studies, we identified that the
main incidence of security considerations relates to the
screening mechanisms attached to the admission process, rather
than the actual criteria for admission or the number of people
who, under each criteria, may be admitted. We feel that the
relevant security concerns may and must be addressed by
strengthening controls in respect of each application form, first
and foremost for visas.
Obviously, the combination of a liberal policy which triggers a
larger number of applicants, with more stringent security
requirements, will necessitate greater resources on the side of
the state. Unfortunately, in South Africa, as in many other
countries of the world, migration control remains the Cinderella
line function which receives chronic insufficient funding and
little policy and political sympathy.
We will need to seek the cooperation of other countries to
strengthen our efforts to ensure the security of our admission
procedures and the integrity of our control. A key element of
such operation will be that of establishing security not only in
respect of those who enter the country legally, but also vis a
vis those who do so illegally. There is little point in having
stringent admission requirements if foreigners may enter our
country and reside there illegally, bypassing the entire system.
We have a 7000 kilometre very porous land border and an even
longer maritime border, which do not lend themselves to
patrolling to prevent illegal entires. If one considers the
amount of resources which, for instance, we have seen being
deployed to secure small tracts of borders between the United
States and Mexico, it becomes apparent that South Africa will
never have the resources to completely secure its borders to
prevent illegal entries.
Therefore, our security efforts must also be placed in detecting
and deporting illegal foreigners by enforcing our laws at
community level, especially in workplaces. Only by doing so will
we be able to redress the factors which pull and entice
foreigners into South Africa. We will also need to develop
greater information and databanks relating to how to deal with
this type of law enforcement both from an investigative and an
execution viewpoint. We are mindful that illegal foreigners are
not criminals to be jailed, but rather lawbreakers who are
forcibly brought back into compliance with the law through
deportation.
We will need to broaden our range of international exchanges with
countries which have gathered greater experience in the field to
learn how to deal with issues of this nature. At this point, we
are even struggling with basic information about the number of
illegal foreigners within our country which, according to some
reports, may range from 2 to 7 million, while our population
stands at around 40 million.
Therefore, we look forward with great excitement to that which we
may learn during this important Conference and through the
exchanges which may arise out of it. We wish to pledge our full
cooperation towards any efforts made to improve on the overall
system of migration control at the international level. By
definition, the challenges and opportunities of international
migration are matters which affect more than one country, and
thus ought to be dealt with through closer cooperation among
states. South Africa enthusiastically encourages this closer
cooperation.